Intelligence of the big cats...

[Shadow]

Here is one interesting article, where Borrego is interviewed. There she tells, that her experience is, that lions manage to do tests without any significant differences, captive or not. So there might be one major difference compared to tigers.

http://aromerojr.net/wordpress/wp-conten...orrego.pdf Reply

[paul cooper]

The lions tested was the same lions that the "lion whisperer" channel on youtube has, and lions in a safari in Florida. Tigers tested were in zoos, and live there. There is a video of this on youtube, the lions are in a safari and tigers in a little cage. Anyways, comparing 21 lions to 7 tigers isnt even fair. They even tried skewing the data around by using percentages of animals opening the box. If 4 out of 7 tigers opened the box they would have been close to the lions score in percent. They try to pan off the number of individuals used by using percentages.
Intelligence is extremely subjective, how do i know that 50 tigers in zoos in europe, 40 of them instead would be opening the boxes. You dont, its a blind guess. Dont worship scientists as gods. Reply

[Amnon242]

(12-30-2018, 02:05 AM)Shadow Wrote:

(12-30-2018, 01:58 AM)Amnon242 Wrote: I do not ignore this research (as I wrote in my first post), but lets not overstate its weight :-) Ok I admit that I find this research somewhat amusing (sorry). And if it was a contest of semi-wild lions and captive tigers, then Im not surprised that lions won :-)

I don´t think, that anyone is overstating it´s weight. I haven´t seen anything like that here. And I don´t mind, that you find it amusing, I find this whole conversation in same way :) I don´t know if these lions were semi-wild or not, there was said, that captive. But maybe some lions have been in better conditions then, not in cages at least(?).

"I don´t think, that anyone is overstating it´s weight. I haven´t seen anything like that here" - perfect. 

"And I don´t mind, that you find it amusing, I find this whole conversation in same way :)" - perfect. 

"I don´t know if these lions were semi-wild or not, there was said, that captive." - lions were from safari while tigers were from big cat rescue (and some zoo?). 


Ok, I have to do something else now. It was a great pleasure to take part in this very interesting and beneficial conversation. Reply

[paul cooper]

Shadow, the captive lions are the ones at the safari. Reply

[paul cooper]

What i dont like is how she focuses on lions so much. God damn. Scared to go to india or what? Reply

[Shadow]

(12-30-2018, 02:26 AM)paul cooper Wrote: Shadow, the captive lions are the ones at the safari.

Yes, I looked that closer. Interesting thing is, that based on what Borrago has observed, lions seem to be able to perform in these tests no matter if captive or not. That then again is interesting difference when tigers seem to react in different way. 

Anyway my point from the beginning has been, that it is very nice and interesting, that someone is making these tests or should I say, started to do those. Hopefully in future it would be possible to see results from wild tigers too. One would think, that Borrago gets/have got feedback about tigers concerning that research. She say herself, that more research is needed. I am too interested to know, how results change if/when wild tigers do comparable tests with other big cats. This kind of test is at least quite motivating to all. Of course with captive animals it can be made sure, that they are hungry. Wild tiger after all can ignore prey or carcass totally if it is not hungry. So it can take time to test many tigers and be sure, that they were interested to get that meat. Reply

[paul cooper]

No shadow. She didnt observe lions in zoos, the same zoos tigers were in. She didnt observe the lions in the same condition and environment tigers were in. However, other people did. Lions in zoos couldnt open the boxes in a similar test, not one single time, out of 5 or 6 lionesses and 1 male lion.

The animals brains are smaller in captivity and zoos. Read the last post of tis thread.

http://www.tapatalk.com/groups/carnivora...nce#391966 Reply

[Shadow]

(12-30-2018, 02:55 AM)paul cooper Wrote: No shadow. She didnt observe lions in zoos, the same zoos tigers were in. She didnt observe the lions in the same condition and environment tigers were in. However, other people did. Lions in zoos couldnt open the boxes in a similar test, not one single time, out of 5 or 6 lionesses and 1 male lion.

The animals brains are smaller in captivity and zoos. Read the last post of tis thread.

http://www.tapatalk.com/groups/carnivora...nce#391966

Yes, I understood, that conditions weren´t same with all, what comes to sample animals. I already said before, that maybe only possible conclusion at this point is, that lions did good in this test with hyenas, no matter what. Other animals might perform better in different conditions. I haven´t denied here, that this study couldn´t be criticized, what comes to sample group size and conditions of animals. 

So what we have here is, that what comes to tigers and leopards, it is reasonable to say, that there are good questions and this test should be repeated with wild tigers and leopards (IMO). But test itself seemed to be quite ok and relatively easy to do. Hopefully in near future new tests in conditions, which could be agreed broadly to be fair and then better possibility to make comparisons. I think, that there is no doubt, that these animals are all quite smart in many ways, question is more about it, that how smart and what kind of things they can learn and what kind of problems they can solve. 

And if there is a way, give feedback to these scientists. Of course they can sometimes miss something even if having good intentions. Or then they might explain something more clearly if someone is able to get through and tell what seems to be odd. Sometimes they do reply. Not always :) Reply

[Shadow]

Here are a few photos about lions and hyenas to give some hint, that what kind of tests have been made. There would be available also video footage, but that demands registration.

https://www.terramater.at/productions/ki...-vs-hyena/ Reply

[brotherbear]

Well, with no science lab documents, my logic tells me to look at lifestyles. The lion hunts mostly large herbivores in open country. He is a group-hunter. The tiger is mostly a loner who prefers wooded forests. But both the leopard and the puma live and hunt is open country, forests, tropics, and mountains, from hot climates to very cold climates. So, would this greater adaptability be a sign of intelligence? Reply

[Shadow]

(12-30-2018, 04:23 PM)brotherbear Wrote: Well, with no science lab documents, my logic tells me to look at lifestyles. The lion hunts mostly large herbivores in open country. He is a group-hunter. The tiger is mostly a loner who prefers wooded forests. But both the leopard and the puma live and hunt is open country, forests, tropics, and mountains, from hot climates to very cold climates. So, would this greater adaptability be a sign of intelligence?

I think, that all big cats have shown that they are able to be adaptive. Then we have many opinions from people working with animals. That is why I like to see, that someone is actually creating repeatable tests, making those and now we have some results to look at. Some criticism naturally, but no-one for sure isn´t denying others do this kind of research too. These tests from Borrago are relatively new, so it can take some time before we see more similar kind of testing, but I hope, that in near future we could see some results concerning also wild tigers or tigers in very good captive conditions and from tigers, which haven´t been so long time in captivity. Then we should be able to have more comparable data what comes to results.

Without some testing and research it is quite hard to find out something, what science community could agree broadly. Reply

[Amnon242]

(12-30-2018, 04:23 PM)brotherbear Wrote: Well, with no science lab documents, my logic tells me to look at lifestyles. The lion hunts mostly large herbivores in open country. He is a group-hunter. The tiger is mostly a loner who prefers wooded forests. But both the leopard and the puma live and hunt is open country, forests, tropics, and mountains, from hot climates to very cold climates. So, would this greater adaptability be a sign of intelligence?

Same goes for tiger, from siberia to Indonesia, dense forests, open plains of Deccan, semi deserts of central Asia, hell of mangrove jungle in Sundarbans, high mountains of Himalayas...all this with being substantially larger than leopard and puma (requires more food and is more visible). There is no doubt that tiger is incredibly adaptable felid. Reply

[Amnon242]

(12-30-2018, 02:29 AM)paul cooper Wrote: What i dont like is how she focuses on lions so much. God damn. Scared to go to india or what?

I dont think that she is into that tigervslion think...but she could be biased in another way - she could have tendency to confirm the theory of higher intelligence of social animals. But thats just a speculation, lets not suspect her of bad intentions. Ok, she made experiment with 21 safari lions and 7 tigers from "orphanage" (and zoo?). Lions were better at opening the door. Everyone is free to make his own conclusion. 

BTW do you have any info on similar experiment...? Reply

[Shadow]

(12-30-2018, 04:59 PM)Amnon242 Wrote:

(12-30-2018, 02:29 AM)paul cooper Wrote: What i dont like is how she focuses on lions so much. God damn. Scared to go to india or what?

I dont think that she is into that tigervslion think...but she could be biased in another way - she could have tendency to confirm the theory of higher intelligence of social animals. But thats just a speculation, lets not suspect her of bad intentions. Ok, she made experiment with 21 safari lions and 7 tigers from "orphanage" (and zoo?). Lions were better at opening the door. Everyone is free to make his own conclusion. 

BTW do you have any info on similar experiment...?

And we can´t forget, that there were leopards too. Has someone information about their conditions in this test? Then we have also soon coming more information from Borrago and Dowling research. There in some photos it looked like two lions had to pull different ropes in same time to be able to open a door. So these tests look like to be a step forward from just opening a door. When someone suspects motives of some researcher, same time it is good to remember, that documents are public and for sure in science community there are a lot of tiger experts giving feedback. Borrago for sure can´t live in any "lion bubble" :)

These tests can be a good start for some real research about a subject which has been discussed many times. Main thing is to find out ways to make tests, which are suitable to different species and then do those in fair way. Reply

[Amnon242]

(12-30-2018, 05:21 PM)Shadow Wrote:

(12-30-2018, 04:59 PM)Amnon242 Wrote:

(12-30-2018, 02:29 AM)paul cooper Wrote: What i dont like is how she focuses on lions so much. God damn. Scared to go to india or what?

I dont think that she is into that tigervslion think...but she could be biased in another way - she could have tendency to confirm the theory of higher intelligence of social animals. But thats just a speculation, lets not suspect her of bad intentions. Ok, she made experiment with 21 safari lions and 7 tigers from "orphanage" (and zoo?). Lions were better at opening the door. Everyone is free to make his own conclusion. 

BTW do you have any info on similar experiment...?

And we can´t forget, that there were leopards too. Has someone information about their conditions in this test? Then we have also soon coming more information from Borrago and Dowling research. There in some photos it looked like two lions had to pull different ropes in same time to be able to open a door. So these tests look like to be a step forward from just opening a door. When someone suspects motives of some researcher, same time it is good to remember, that documents are public and for sure in science community there are a lot of tiger experts giving feedback. Borrago for sure can´t live in any "lion bubble" :)

These tests can be a good start for some real research about a subject which has been discussed many times. Main thing is to find out ways to make tests, which are suitable to different species and then do those in fair way.

"There in some photos it looked like two lions had to pull different ropes in same time to be able to open a door" - I belive that when it comes to cooperation, lions are better than any other felid. 


"for sure in science community there are a lot of tiger experts giving feedback" - Ok, you have your own idea of the activities of scientists and relationships in the scientific community...I respect that :-) Reply