Book Review

[Dr Panthera]

Book Review: "Tigers of The World " Second Edition 2010 Ronald Tilson, Philip Nyhus, and others.

The long awaited follow-up to the excellent first edition is worth the wait, a compendium on ecology, science, politics, and conservation ot the tiger in the twenty first century.
The book starts with a summary of what we know about the ecology of the tiger by the best tiger scientist Dr.Mel Sunquist and continues to disuss the genetics of a tiger, its subspecies and taxonomy, The second chapter discusses tigers problems and solutions across its landscape, the third chapter highlights tools for understanding tigers, The fourth describes the status of wild tigers over the world, the fifth and final chapter examines the future of tigers and poses the grim question: Will Panthera tigris be extinct in our lifetime ?
The book is a collaboration of prominent tiger scientists from the Asian countries where it originates as well as from western universities and institutes, it is the "Bible" of tiger conservation nowadays.
I enjoyed the book particularly:
* Sunquist's beautiful summary of the ecology of tigers, accurate, thorough, and well-backed by evidence from studies, he also provides some unpublished data from Sriyanto regarding the diet of Sumatran tigers ( 39% wild boar, 29.7% sambar, 15.5% pig-tailed macaques , 10.4% muntjac).
* The genetic separation of Malaysian tigers (P.t.jacksoni) from Indochinese tigers (P.t.corbetti) and why they are a different subspecies despite similarity in skull morphology, size, and pelage. They do have their unique alleles that classify them as a separate subspecies.
* The scientific answer to the long debated question who is the biggest cat? The lion or the tiger? Dr.Kitchener and Dr.Yamaguchi estimated the average weight of all wild lions to be 175 kg for males and 120 kg for females and for wild tigers to be 160 kg for males and 115 kg for females, so on the species levels lions are slightly larger, having said that the percentage of large male tigers (225 to 270 kg) is more than that of male lions in the same category.
* Great description of the different sub-species of tigers
* Great description of the current distribution of tigers, the different TCL ( tiger conservation landscapes) and the potential for tigers in each of them.
* Tigers persist in only 7% of their historic range, and only 5% of the range is class I TCL ( where tigers may live for the next ten tiger generations around 35 years)
* The high number of captive tigers in the USA and China...tiger tragedy
* TCLs that have over 100 tigers are less than 15 and they are a priority, extending this to class II and class III could save tigers from extinction
* Description of new technology in tiger research ( e.g. camera trapping, telemetry, scent -matching dogs)
* Specific tiger conservation needs in Nepal, India, Bangladesh, Thailand, Malaysia, Sumatra, and Russia . Reply