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Can we tell how big cats are doing by the number of wild dogs in the area?
Can we tell how big cats are doing by the number of wild dogs in the area?
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Can we tell how big cats are doing by the number of wild dogs in the area?
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I am not sure the title is worded correctly, but I found this very interesting.
 (01-21-2015, 12:04 AM)'Pckts' Wrote: I am not sure the title is worded correctly, but I found this very interesting.I can be wrong but perhaps this is not the same rule, the same interaction between lions and african wild dogs, which prevails in other animals sanctuaries. For example I believe that the african wild dogs are numerous inside the Okawango delta. As concerns the Serengeti, The wild dogs have effectively difficulties to regenerate their population. But I remember according to former books that, at the beginning of the XXth century, wild dogs seemed to be able to compete with lions and hyenas before to be listed as an undesirable predator, and thus exterminated. Since then that is perhaps very difficult for them to take over, to get back, into an environment early rich in lions. 
@Spalea I really don't belive one bit that wild dogs can have a single chance against lions, my own personal experience is that I have seen lions walk right in and steal the kill from 15-20 wild dogs, killing them by running right into a pack of them. and one lioness walking thru a big pack wild dogs. wild dogs are formidable predators and I have alot of respect for them, but storries about them compeating with lions and even killing them is just not true.. even big packs of wild dogs can't manage to kill single hyenas, large blue wildebeast etc. and no way they kill lions.
same with dhole's they are formidable animals. but serriously a tiger? a tiger do not have to fear wild dog's one bit. there are some big dhole packs in tadoba, but tigers do not fear them, trust me! and also the old storries was "several wild dogs fighting one male tiger several dogs died during that fight" I do not think any animals of any times did fights like this, those kind of storries you hear alot from the past and old storries, like two male lions vs 35 hyenas several hyenas died and the lion survived, it's over dramaticiced storries all of them. and yes @Pckts I do think big cats, does have a negative effect on dogs. I have seen both leopards and several lions with killed wild dogs! aswell as tigers killing dholes, and heared about how siberian tiger apperences can make all wolves in the area dissapere.
@Pantherinae : OK I believe you. I just remindered what I read many years ago when the wild canids were much more common than now. And about tigers you have mentionned, I have a National Geographic DVD "In the land of tiger" in which it is related a case of an epic battle between a tiger and 30 dholes. The tiger would have died after having killed a dozen dholes.
I prefer to believe you, you can be sure ! I am just surprised to have read so many books relating such facts. Fantasy feats...
if 30 dholes had attacked a tiger (i think it reads male aswell) the tiger COULD maybe have been killed, and for sure many dholes would have been killed, but why would such an inteligent animal such as dholes attack a tiger, which would mean a serrious loss of vital pack members and why does this not happen now in prencent time with both AWD vs lions or dholes vs tigers? i think it's made up storries to be honest.
I think now in precent time the two biggest cat's can mean serroius threat to smaller cat's and wild dogs because forrest's are getting smaller and prey more scarce and the carnivores are forced closer together. (an example is lions vs cheetah.)
@Pantherinae : I just repeated what I had heard in this national geographic DVD which is, dated from the 90's, enough recent. I don't see either why a big pride of dholes would have suffered a big loss by attackins a such powerful opponent. The stories about african wild dogs competing with lions are much older.
And you would be right by suggesting that big cats become a serious threat to smaller wild canids by being confined into smaller surface areas. 
In the thirties, forties and fifties of the last century, wolves were seen quite often in Sichote-Alin and Manchuria, right in the heart of Amur tiger country. This was when Amur tigers were very close to extinction. Today, wolves are rare in these regions. The reason is Amur tigers actively hunt wolves (as well as other canids) when given half a chance. As wolves are now rare, Amur tigers often turn to dogs in difficult times. This, most probably, is the reason they contracted canine distemper some years ago.
In India, dogs are actively hunted by leopards. They do not seem to be on the menu of tigers. City leopards (Mumbai as well as a few other cities) very often hunt dogs and they seem to thrive on them. Wild canids are not hunted by big cats in India. Wolves usually stay clear of big cats, but dholes, at times, displace leopards and tigers. Kenneth Anderson wrote about tigers killed by dholes half a century ago, but biologists didn't find any proof in the last decades. In South-America, jaguars prey on dogs. Not as often as leopards in India, but there are plenty of reports from Brazil in particular. When I was in Surinam and French Guyana, I noticed jaguars were much feared by many. I didn't ask the dogs, but noticed they stayed well clear of the forest. There's a small wild canid in South-America. These bush dogs live in groups and are an enigma. I never heard of jaguars and pumas preying on them, but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. In the USA and Canada, pumas also attack dogs, but timber wolves are a very different ball game. In Canada, wolves (as well as bears) follow and displace pumas quite often. The result is many have to hunt twice as much as they would without them. Adult male cougars kill adult wolves at times, but females and youngsters often are treed and even killed. One reason for wolf domination is wolves live in packs most of the year. At 80-100 pounds (and some individuals up to 140 pounds and even a bit over), they also are larger than those in other regions. In Africa, lions do not actively hunt hyena dogs and other wild canids for food, but they won't miss a chance to eliminate competitors. Leopards opportunistically hunt jackals for food in some regions, although not to the same extent as with dogs in Asia. Big cats and wild canids are competitors and will eliminate each other when given the opportunity. The only big cats actively hunting canids for food seem to be leopards and jaguars, but 'canids' seem to be dogs only. The only big cat actively hunting wild canids (read wolves) is the Amur tiger. In other regions, however, tigers do not hunt wild canids or dogs. Big cats and wild canids are competitors nearly everywhere, but the only place where they fysically compete (lions and hyenas) is Africa. The outcome of a battle usually seems to be affected by (combined) weight. It usually is a close call. Not so in Canada, where timber wolves, in spite of a few losses, are pushing pumas out of their territory at times. They really seem to struggle in regions with many wolves. Here's a recent photograph of a dog killed by a jaguar in Brazil. The jaguar, as you can see, also paid:  *This image is copyright of its original author
Peter.
I do know leopards will keep a good distance from dholes and African wild dogs, actually I'm shocked by The respect the leopards are giving them. Tigers on The other han are just way to big and strong for dholes to kill, and I would put alot of money on that it never happens. You will hear farmers say the tiger makes the wolves disappare in siberia, and that's why they prefere tigers over wolves. Hyenas are not canids and The african wild dog fear Lions extreamly much, Lions will even go into The burrows of wild dogs to kill pups, and kills them every time the Get The oppertunety, and there are much Lions in one lion territory and I hear people filming wild dogs saying that Lions are The main threat 
Like Pantherinae, I have always had serious doubts about the old records of tigers-lions been killed by wild dogs.
On the tiger side, from several accounts in literature, only two seems to be more or less from first hand and none of them present the age of the animals (one was a female, the other is unknown). In about 20 years in the field, Dr Karanth have NEVER saw a single incident of dholes attacking a tiger, not to say killing it, while he have saw many instances of tigers attacking, killing or driving away entire packs of dholes from kills, even a case of a tigress with her cubs. There is a clear domination of the tiger over the dhole in Nagarahole, Bandipur, Tadoba, all areas with high population of dholes, were packs can be over 15 members. The famous stories of 30 dholes killing a tiger, and 10-15 dogs killed in the process seems stupid. What sense have to sacrifice your entire family just to kill a single animal that will bring you less food that a large deer????? In the words of Dr Karanth, this DON'T have ANY evolutionary sense. I think that those stories of dholes killing tigers were just her-says and myths to enhance the reputation, or the create bad fame, to the dholes. In several places has been observed dholes attacking leopards, but interestingly, no dhole scat show leopard fur, but is true for the other way around. Somehow, the shy big cat do manage to kill one dog in some opportunity. A more deep investigation will shed some light to this issue, showing that most of the dhole-tiger accounts in the old books are only copy-paste or rephrased of the same two stories presented by Sunquist & Sunquist (2002). On the lion side, there is practically nothing to say, Schaller observed some isolated cases of dogs driving lions from kills, but not attacking or killing them. In other areas like South Africa, lions are a serious menace to wild dogs. Clearly lions dominate wild African dogs, period.
TIGERS AND DHOLES IN INDIA
Although I agree the much quoted letter about the fight between a male tiger and a dhole pack in the JBNHS was suspect, there's no question dholes chased, fought and killed tigers in the first half of the century in southern India, Guate. It was a rarity, but it happened. Kenneth Anderson delivered unmistakable proof. The evolutionary gain (for dholes) is elimination of a competitor, which would result in more food. They paid, but the reward apparently was higher. Tkachenko, in his recent article on Amur tigers in a reserve just north of Khabarowsk (see the tiger extinction thread), wrote Himalayan black bears and brown bears, although they were often taken by tigers in the reserve he studied, didn't hesitate to visit tiger kills. Hunger dominated fear, that is. Access to food is a driving evolutionary factor. It apparently dominates fear. In both bears and dholes. LIONS, HYENA DOGS AND HYENAS IN AFRICA Hyena dogs fear lions for good reasons. Lions actively seek them out, which is remarkable. One reason is hyena dogs, even in packs, are unable to huret an adult lion, let alone a pride. When lions raid a denning site, there will be no revenge. Not so in hyenas. On the African plains, there's little to choose between lions and hyenas. The reason is there usually are four hyenas for every adult lion, which means the outcome of any battle is unclear. Hyenas know this and so do lions. A question of combined weight, many think. When a situation is undecided, psychology comes in. It's remarkable that lions, when they face a large group of hyenas, do not seem organized. They are when they attack (hunting), but not when the have to defend. Hyenas know this and use it. I never saw any statistics, but my guess is hyenas could be close to 50% in engagements. This is the reason we see so many battles. It apparently pays. TIGERS AND BEARS IN RUSSIA Lions and hyenas compare to tigers and bears in Russia. The difference is bears are solitary animals, meaning a tiger can single out any bear he wants to. Tigers use this advantage in that they actively hunt, ambush, kill and eat bears, in this way both eliminating competition and profiting in the best possible way. Some male bears follow and single out tigresses with cubs and immature tigers, but that doesn't happen often. The number of tigers killed by bears is limited. Not the other way round. Psychologywise, the advantage has to be with the tiger. The result is they do not lose a lot of food: about 15% or thereabout, experts think (see the posts on a thesis recently discussed in the tiger extinction thread). Although females and immatures sometimes lose their kill to a large bear, statistics say it doesn't happen often. Females and immatures also hunt and kill bears, in this way eliminating competition. Read the story about the youngsters recently released. The two young males, at about 2 years of age, both killed a bear. One of these was a 3-year old bear. Not a mature animal, but it tells you a bit about tigers. We now know even immature tigers hunt large wild boars and, at times, bears because of collars. They could have disadvantages, but there's no question there are advantages as well. The wild boars and bears killed by the young tigers would never have been discovered without them. The impression I have, is tigers are able to cope with bears, although expert agree there's no question very large male bears dominate in the end. But these are few and far between. AMUR TIGERS AND WOLVES Amur tigers hunt wolves, which resulted in few wolves in south-eastern Russia. This is remarkable, as we know wolves, in winter, usually live and hunt in large packs. Theoretically, 6-10 adult wolves should outweigh and, therefore, dominate any tiger, but apparently this is not the case. One reason is wolves are not as heavy and big as hyenas. They can't take a lot of damage. Another is tigers are solitary and usually live in forests, which doesn't help a pack hunter. The attitude of tigers could also be important, in that they do not accept competition. They hunt (and eat) leopards, badgers and smaller cats and also are prepared to engage even large bears, at times at their peril. Vindictiveness doesn't seem to be limited to male tigers. LIONS AND HYENAS Lions not not actively seek out hyenas and eliminate them. Not consistently, I mean. One reason is lions do not eat hyenas. Hunting them doesn't pay, that is. Two is there are too many hyenas. If you want to beat them, you need a strategy. Tigers seem to seek out competitors, but lions, for some reason, do not. Even male lions do not regard hyenas as enemies. The only real enemy for a male lion is another male lion. Sexual competition dominates the competition for food in male lions, that is. For this reason, they often face stiff competition from hyenas. For male lions, unrestricted access to food apparently isn't as important as unrestricted access to females.
@peter I agree with you, as we have all said about wild dogs and tigers/lions
and I agree a tiger can kill a smaller bear, but against a large male bear the tiger would stand little chance. well lions for sure looks at hyenas as competition and they will kill kill hyenas given the chance, and 4 hyenas at one lions is just for lionesses. you can have 20 hyenas and they won't chase a adult male lion away form the kill.
here you can see about 20 hyenas do not even try to steal the kill from a adult male!
(01-25-2015, 01:19 PM)'peter' Wrote: TIGERS AND DHOLES IN INDIAIn this occasion, my friend, I am not agree, but I am going to explain why. Old accounts like those of Kenneth Anderson seems reliable in a normal context, however, sometimes those accounts are not as accurate as we can think. Dr Karanth refer to this event:  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author He (Karanth) is very humble saying that his experience is "limited", especially when he spend more time in the forest that any hunter, plus his observations are not anecdotal but from a scientific point of view. In this case, I think that Dr Karanth made a good point on the exaggeration issue of hunters and the use of evolutionary logic. How reliable are the old accounts??? Are they from first hand or just second hand stories that the author only absorbed in his/her tales??? A perfect example is the story of the two tigers and a tusker from Jim Corbett, that at the end, resulted that it was a second hand report. Other thing, as far I remember, non of the accounts described the age or the health state of the tigers, which is crucial in the account. One say female, the other say male, but in the old tales, hunters never had a good method to estimate the age of tigers and size is not a good method (remember the young subadult tigers from Nepal that already weighed over 200 kg and had the same size than adult tigers, for example). Finally, food is definitely not a good factor, not in this case. India have "and" had one of the best prey bases, specially in the areas where the tiger-vs-dhole accounts arise. Check the descriptions of Dr Karanth and you will see that even in greater numbers, dholes retire when a tiger arise. In the worst case, I would agree Mazák (1981): "It was also reported that a pack of Indian wild dogs or dholes (Cuon alpinus) may exceptionally kill adult tigers (Pocock, 1939). Nonetheless, it seems that wild dogs could kill only ill or otherwise weakened tigers". Lastly, a final scientific opinion on the issue:  *This image is copyright of its original author Mazak statement seems to be the most unbiased and give some credit to the old stories, but like Dr Karanth and Dr Tiwari, I now accept that those old accounts seems too suspicions to accept them just like that, especially when in almost 50 years of modern scientific studies, there is not a single case of dholes attacking (not the say killing) any tiger, while on the other hand, there are several cases, scat and kill evidence, of tiger predation over dholes. Something say to me that the old stories of tigers killed by dholes are the same ones of tigers over 4 m long in Russia. None of them confirmed, and all of them colored with exaggeration. (01-25-2015, 09:24 PM)'Pantherinae' Wrote: @peter I agree with you, as we have all said about wild dogs and tigers/lions LIONS AND HYENAS You're right regarding adult male lions and hyenas. A healthy male in his prime will not often be bothered by hyenas. It is, however, also true hyenas do not hesitate to challenge a pride of lions, males included, when they made a kill. This means they expect a result and the information I have says hyenas stand a good chance to win a battle every now and then. In most cases, they win because of superiority in numbers (combined weight). In the video you posted, the kill was a small animal. The male lion wasn't bothered, but things could work out different when the reward is more interesting for a group of hungry robbers. Lions dominate other predators, but they can be injured in a clash in spite of that. As soon as they are, they, like tigers, have a big problem. Lions know about hyenas and jaws and, for this reason, try to avoid injury. TIGERS AND BEARS Russian authorities agree brown bears should top the table. They are probably right, because bears are significantly heavier than tigers and also able to take damage. In spite of this advantage, biologists, apart from a few exceptions, found no evidence of male tigers displaced at kill sites. Females and immatures, at times, had to share their kill and some were displaced, but males apparently is a different ball game. I do not doubt a large male bear would get it his way, but animals of, say, 300 kg. and over are few and far between. An average male bear apparently isn't willing to take any risks with an adult male tiger. And the other way round. I don't think they avoid each other (there are reports about interactions), but serious fights are very rare and victims even more so. All in all, I think the story on both is rather incomplete. There's more to it than we think, but there's very little information. The only thing we know for sure is male bears have killed male tigers (two as far as I know), females and immatures in fights, but there's also evidence of male bears killed by male tigers. Schatuns in most cases, but it did happen. FIGHTS AND PATTERNS What we want to see, is patterns. Corbett wrote about a large male in India displaced by a big Himalayan bear and researchers found evidence of displacement in Russia. The only thing missing was patterns. There's no doubt bears of all sizes and ages visit tiger kills whenever possible, but that's different from consistent displacement. The information I have strongly suggests Amur tigers respond differently to bears than Indian tigers. I once tried to get to a table on the outcome of fights near kill sites (predation was not included) and concluded the number of victims on both sides in a period of about half a century was quite impressive. The conclusion was Amur tigers were not taking it lying down. If they would accept bears as regular uninvited guests, they would face a big problem in a region known for the number of bears. They have no option but to defend their kill and that's what we see. If there are patterns, I would get to bears visiting tiger kills whenever possible (a) and tigers and bears 'duking it out', as Miquelle described it, near kill sites (b). His opinion was underlined by Linda Kerley and others who have experience in Russia. The outcome of fights, according to the table I made, is close to unpredictable ©. Tigers win more fights, but that's what one would expect: they are able to withdraw when things don't work out as expected, whereas bears can't. The only thing missing for now is the classified results for different categories. I do not doubt tigers dominate most, but I would agree with the Russians that bears could have an advantage in the category of 400 pounds and over (males in most cases). The advantage they have, however, isn't significant. Not significant enough to displace male tigers on a regular basis, that is. This is why male tigers are not often displaced, I think. But I could be wrong.
Very interesting read, Guate. Thanks.
I will try to find the information Kenneth Anderson offered (I recently bought two of his books) and post what I find. I propose to continue in the tiger extinction thread, as this thread was intended for wild canids and big cats, not tigers in particular. |
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