ON THE EDGE OF EXTINCTION - A - THE TIGER (Panthera tigris)

[GuateGojira]

Is Kailash Sankhala a tiger expert?

Introduction:

Since many months ago I was trying to make a proper post about an issue that started like a simple commentary but, for some reason, became very polemic, just like tiger conservation itself. So I took my time to read the entire book of Sankhala “Tiger! The Story of the India Tiger” again and I also saw the documentary “Project C.A.T.” from Animal Planet, which present the public figure of Sankhala and his efforts to save the Indian tiger.

 

I offered to make a post entirely about the tiger conservation in India, but I took the time to read the previous posts, from my person and others, and in fact the issue is not that, but the fact that I said that Sankhala was not a “tiger expert”, and then is when all hell break loose. Or is not? In fact, as far I remember only 7 people (including @“peter” and I) participated of this short debate and that is all, the other posters don’t even care (as far I know).  So, it was so dramatic that this affected the entire forum? Of course not, it feels more like a case of been “polite”, but it is pretty weird that the reaction of some posters here was so harsh but at the same time when other posters have spoken against Dr Karanth and the great Valmik Thapar, the reaction was like “mehhhh” and I was actually the one that defended the experts and I warned many posters that speak against them (when I was a moderator).

 

So, this post is, at some point, a waste of my very precious time, because I have so many things that I would like to share or update in the forum BUT because I promised a post about my reasons, now I am obligated to make it. Also, I feel compelled to defend, in some form, the work of all the scientists like Dr Chundawat and Dr Seindensticker, which were particularly affected by this person or the people that followed his policies, that at 2019, are nothing more than the same old forester techniques (good in its time, but outdated with the modern techniques). In fact, it was the book of Dr Chundawat of 2018 “The Rise and Fall of the Emerald Tigers” which changed my point of view of the Indian authorities regarding the tiger conservation and how some of the old ideas on the tiger behavior made by Sankhala are still affecting the modern tiger conservation. 

 

The main point of this post will be to discuss the specific reasons why I believe why Sankhala was not a tiger “expert”, but also to clarify what is, for me, an “expert” in the stricto sensu of the word.

 

What is an expert?

It is popularly known that an “expert” is a person that know very well what is doing, that have a background of studies and procedures to make his work and in this case, every person can be an “expert” in his field. Now, is Sankhala a tiger expert? Based in the previous description he is, and one of the best. However, there is something that made me doubt about this asseveration and is the methodology that he used, his conclusions and over all, his attitude about any other idea/study/result that contradicted his conclusions.

 

In the past, the classic Zoologists like Pocock, Brander, Hewett and Burton, are regarded among the best tiger experts in the field, with personal observations or taxonomic studies. Among measurements, the Maharaja of Cooch Behar is undeniably the best on this field (an expert in tiger size), and on the observations of tiger behavior, people like Jim Corbett and F. W. Champion are still regarding as very reliable observers. However, not all the people think the same. Modern Biologist, although they still use quotes from some of this people, actually discard others with no particular reason and they claim that some of the information is not reliable, like Dr Yamaguchi and Dr Karanth itself have done. However also Sankhala discarded many of that information, especially that of Corbett, which he criticize in the chapter 7 of his book. It is not out of question for any person to accept or discard information with a valid justification, and although the chapter 7 of Sankhala’s book put a serious doubt about the reputation of “man-eater” of the tigers, there is no form to justify how he express his ideas about the studies of Dr Seindesticker in Nepal and Dr Schaller in Khana in the rest of the book, disproving his results in a severe form. So the question rise, is Kailash Sankhala the right person to discard the studies of these two experts? The answer is obviously no, but for some reasons, it seems that many “tiger conservationists” think otherwise, and like a poster in this forum had showed (do I need to mention his name?), there is an internal “hate” to the westerns in many parts of the Asian continent, and they constantly discard the scientific results and methods to study the flora and fauna.

 

In the documentary “Project C.A.T.” from Animal Planet, Sankhala is described as one of the tiger saviors, if not the main one, but also they say that his character as a person was not a very “friendly” one, something that he did not try to hide in his book. It seems that, in his mind, he is the only and true tiger authority. This is not bad by itself and certainly it was necessary in that time, when it was necessary a man with a strong personality to defy the old authorities and fight to save the tiger. However, what is constantly ignored is that Sankhala was not the only man that “saved” the Indian tiger, in fact many other people from the west did pledged for the tiger salvation and conservation. IF we check the books of Thapar, Sunquist, Karanth and Chundawat, we will see that one person is constantly called like the tiger savior and is no other than Indira Gandhi, which was the real person that started the revolution in India in favor of tiger conservation. Sankhala played a very important part of this like the first direct of the Project Tiger, but also he received help from other Indian pers like H. S. Panwar or Fateh Singh, but also from wester people like Guy Mountfort, a revered British conservationists that pushed from the establishment of the “Operation Tiger” in 1969, and Peter Jackson, a person that don’t need any introduction, also then the IUCN/WWF started and aggressive effort, not only to get money for the new Project Tiger, but also to make the world know that the tiger needed help. So, it was a complete team of people, from many nationalities, leaded by Indira, which actually managed to “save” the tiger from the extinction. While this is well stablished by modern tiger scientists, it was forgotten by the Indian authorities, and called only a “Tiger man” when actually should be a “Tiger team”.

 

Returning to the point, we know that Sankhala was a Biologist that received college education, so he had education and a backup for his forestry studies. However, like I said before, his methods and conclusions were somewhat dubious, especially by the fact that he presented them as the absolute “true” and not like a result of his specific observations, in a specific region in a specific time. Interestingly is not his book with his results that is normally quoted as the main tiger study, but the book of Dr George Schaller “The Deer and the Tiger”. Sankhala can be called a “tiger man” but the book of Schaller is called “the Bible of tiger conservation” and this is quoted by no other than the great Vamik Thapar, and is mentioned as the only truly scientific tiger study in India until the work of Dr Ullas Karanth started in Nagarahole and the 90’s.

 

Check this list of books that I have in physical form and also in digital one:

1. Tiger, the ultimate guide – Valmik Thapar

2. Tiger – Stephen Mills

3. The Way of the tiger – Ullas Karanth

4. Tiger Moon – Fiona and Melvin Sunquist

5. The Face of the tiger – Charles McDougal

6. Tigers – John Seidensticker

7. The Social Organization of Tigers (Panthera tigris) in Royal Chitawan National Park, Nepal – Mel Sunquist

8. Riding the Tiger: Tiger Conservation in Human-Dominated Landscapes – Seidensticker et al, 1999.

9. Tiger – Simon Barnes

10. The Rise and Fall of the Emerald Tigers – Raghu Chundawat.

 

These are the scientific books and documents (among a few others, like the two editions of the book “Tigers of the World”) that form the base of the tiger knowledge, the REAL tiger, excluding personal interpretations based in single sights and old zoologist/hunter reports. The interesting is that all this books recognize that the first scientific study in India was the one of Dr Schaller and the second the one of Dr Karanth, that tiger conservation started with the leadership of Indira Gandhi and none of them quote Sankhala as source of information for wild tigers, none! In fact, I found that his information on captive tigers is used by some of those authors, but that is all. So, was this a revenge for his attitude against westerners? Certainly I don’t think that at all, but we must see something very important here and is that despite the slight differences of the results in some of them studies, all of them follow about the same line of tiger study and is that the tiger is an adaptive animal that follow some ecological rules and many of them conclusions match between them, something that sadly, do not happen with Sankhala.

 

Follow this line, I can say that Sankhala fit among the classic zoologist of the past, in the place of honor of Pocock, Brander, Hewett, Burton, Corbett and Champion, which provided very good information about tiger behavior but that need to be reviewed before to be quoted. These are tiger “experts” in lato sensu, they lived and observed tigers, they placed they conclusions and are still mentioned in tiger literature, but in my point of view are not the “experts” that we need now. Many of they observations were made only a few times, or only once, and that can’t be classified as “fact”, they methods were not validated by pers and although we can use them as reliable, they conclusions are easily challenged, like Sankhala himself done with Corbett (not directly, but definitely he challenge the idea that Corbett was a tiger “conservationist”). In stricto sensu, I am with the group of people that started using scientific methodology and that begin with Schaller, those that made several studies in Biology, that presented they methodologies and studies in full, and that continue growing the tiger “knowledge”. I will dare to include Valmik Thapar here too, as his continuous observations and gather of information leaded him to create a very good “scientific” study of the tigers of Ranthambore. I have said many times that all the modern naturalists and photographers should join all they observations and knowledge and summarize them in books or forums, so they results could be studies and dissected by they pers and will be very useful for the “tiger-science”.

 

In conclusion, that is the reason why I can’t take Sankhala as a tiger “expert”, he was a great observer, that for sure, and his book is beautiful but his conclusions of the tiger behavior are so authoritatively presented that we forget that are incorrectly or incompletely done, leading to errors that may cause damage to tiger conservation. Every person has the right to read and make they own conclusions, after all the books are readily available for any person and anybody can buy it in Amazon/Ebay/etc…, but this is MY personal opinion.

 

If you, the reader, are going to buy a book about the tiger and you want good scientific information, I will recommend you any of the books that I quoted before. But if you want to read the book of Sankhala, it will be a good choice, but you will need to check with all the previous references just to see if the information of the tiger is correct or not. About the tiger cohabitants I can’t make a judgement, as I can only compare it with Dr Schaller’s book, and I can tell you that the information on the deers, gaur and antelopes in the last book is way more extended than in the Sankhala’s book.

 

The Good and the Bad

@“peter” told me that in my answer it will be good if I leave it with a series of open questions, so the reader will be free to get they own conclusions, I was agree, but I feel that will leave open doubts about the real content of the book of Sankhala. So I decided to change the last part and actually disclose the specific points where I see that Sankhala presents incorrect information/conclusions, but also, for the sake of “fairness” I also going to include the good points about Sankhala investigation, and believe me, there are many of them. In this form I will show that I don’t think that Sankhala misinformed the reader on purpose in any form, is only that he tried to present his study like the “last word” on the tiger, which was sadly not the case, and I think that Sankhala was just a victim of his own “pride” and instead of accepting the other two studies about tigers at his time (Chitwan and Kanha) to increase his information, like all the modern scientists have done (especially those from Russia, which perfectly blended the old Russian zoologist information with the modern Russian/USA studies), he just rejected them and by consequence (indirectly), all his conclusions about tigers in the WILD were rejected by modern scientists too.  The following analysis will cover the “Bad” and the “Good” of the information about tigers in his book “Tiger! The Story of the Indian Tiger” of 1977. I can’t scan each page and I apologize for that, but those who have the book can check that what I am going to share is true to the publication of Sankhala and the publications of the other sources that I will use for comparison. If someone needs a scan of a specific page or series of pages, you can ask for it and I will try to do my best to put it here ASAP. Ok, here we go…….

 

* The Bad:

First we going to review the “bad” things about Sankhala’s investigation/conclusions about tigers, some of them are very small, but some of them of great importance in tiger conservation.

 

1. Tiger stripes for identification:

In page 24 Sankhala mention that George Schaller working in Kahna depended on the markings around the eyes to identify tigers, but he says that as this differ on each side and can also look differently depending of the mood of the tiger and the angle from which they are viewed, the application of this method is very limited in general.

 

However, while his claim makes sense at some points, it makes me think why he discarded this method of identification and promoted the method of using foot markings. He accept that is very hard to do it and we need experts, but at the end, it is useless for long term monitoring or even worst, is silly to use it for tiger census. Also, Dr Schaller and Dr McDougal use this method (face marks) very well, and the last one even present a series of draws of those markings that we can see in page 51 of his book “The Face of the Tiger”. In fact the use of face and even body markings is now the base of the new tiger census and Dr Karanth reach it to the next level, using even equations to estimate the tiger numbers trough the method of capture and recapture. However, again, it seems that the many naturalists of the Indian government and park rangers still ignore these methods and like Dr Karanth says: “We both continue to strongly believe that the scientific process of peer review and publication in high-quality journals should guide the choice of appropriate methods for monitoring tigers and their prey. Therefore, we are somewhat dismayed that, in spite of availability of superior methods, tiger conservation practitioners are sometimes slow to adopt them or even use demonstrably flawed or obsolete methodologies. We believe this is largely because of intellectual inertia, rather than resource constraints, given the current levels of investment. Unfortunately, we can offer no methodological cure for this problem” (Karanth & Nichols, 2017).

 

2. Tiger smell marks:

It seems obvious, even for “beginners” that tiger communicate they presence and demark territory using marks of urine and feces. However that is not the case for Sankhala. In page 27 to 29 he describe how poor is the smell of the tiger, so much that he describe an experiment when he use a dead pig hidden in the tiger place and says that the tigers failed to found it. It is accepted by many scientist that the main senses used to hunt are eyes and earing, but Dr Siedensticker describes an event in page 37 of his book “Tigers” of 1996, when the tigers 101 (the first one to be radiocollared in the world) found a boar using both sound and scent. But at the end, tigers do not normally relay in smell to found prey, but what happen with the demarcation? Well, according with Sankhala the tiger’s feces and urine do not have any smell, the smell came from the tiger itself! In page 28 and 29 he described how he searched a tigress in this form and he concludes that is a defense mechanism and in page 28 he says that the grimace face that the tiger made is not related with the courtship or mating or territorialism and that the same expression can be obtained spraying the tiger whit its own urine. He also says that he personally smelled the urine of the tigers in the zoo and did not found any smell!!!

 

But what the other tiger experts says? Well Valmik Thapar from page 102 to 106 of his book “Tiger the Ultimage Guide” of 2004 perfectly explain how the tiger use the urine with other fluids to mark the territory and contrary to Sankhala claim, he clearly describe a smell that is musky and strong. Thapar says: “The smell can last for up to forty days and is an excellent indication of how recently a tiger has passed by and whether or not the area is occupied” (Thappar, 2004; page 103). He also describes how the flehmen is used to identify the sex, age, health status and disposition of the tiger. So, how is that Sankhala did not identify any smell?

 

Other testimony is from Steven Mills in his book “Tiger” from 2004, which in page 79 to 81 describe the same information shared by Thappar. He quotes Schaller’s opinion that the smell was “very musky” and that “it was discernible even to the human nose at a distance”. Mills says: “The “marking fluids” has since been studied by two scientists, R. L. Brahmachary and J. Dutta (in Tigers of the World), who have found that, though its base is uric acid, the more existing scents are probably carried in some of the other components of the fluid, including chemicals like phenylethylamine, cadaverine and putrescine. Somewhere in there are pheromones, the chemicals that stimulate animals in their sexual activities” (Mills, 2004). He also describes a mark found by Dr Dave Smith that he personally smelled and described it like “damp and musky”.

 

Finally, but not the last, Dr Sunquist in his monograph of 1981 of the tigers in Chitwan, explain how tigers use the pages 60 and 61 describe the method used by tigers and also describe how the tigers try to renew the marks at least every 3 to 4 days, depending of they travels through the territory (I don’t remember the specific page of this, but is in the monograph).

 

In conclusion, in this point, we can clearly see that the conclusion of Sankhala is incorrect, again, and that thanks to the testimonies of other experts we can see why the tiger use this type of chemical communication.

 

3. The tiger is a wanderer

Following his idea that tigers are not territorial, in page 30 he says that the tiger is a “wanderer” that “wanders with no definite plan in mind”. However he says that “within his “home range” he has a mental note of such features as day shelters, waterholes and places where food may be expected”. This sound contradictory, and again is corrected by other experts.

 

Dr Seidensticker (1996) in page 38 to 42 of his book “Tigers” describe how the tigress 101 used known trails and made use of them are highways, and adapted his activities according the prey changes. Also Dr Karanth in his book “The Way of the Tiger” in page 56 exemplify that “resident” tigers have known trails and travel less than the “transients” which for obvious reasons need to wander for large tracks. In this case, we can see that Sankhala is partially correct, but with resident tigers this is not the case, as they travel to known places to hunt and if they fail, they change to other known place. They not just wander randomly, but try to search known patterns of prey, but at the same time always looking for any potential prey that the can found.

 

4. Tigers are not territorial

This is the main point of many discussions and at some point is a very polemic topic. Sankhala took his time to explain why he think that all tigers are not territorial and from page 39 to 43 he describes why he think that tigers are not territorial and that more. In page 39 and 40, he mentions that case of the radiocollared tiger “Sundar” that was translocated in the Sundarband region and at the end was found dead. Sankhala says that he believe that the tiger died from the drugs and was scavenged by wild boars, while Dr Seidensticker said that the tigers was killed by other tiger in a territory fight. Whatever happened we can see it in the document of Dr Seindensticker, but the point is that then Sankhala says that tigers are not territorial and that they do not defend any home range (this case was mentioned by the poster @“Paul Cooper”). He quotes an experiment when he put baits for tigers and they were within range or earing and the tigers do not care of each other. He also quotes testimonies of several tigers sharing the same area of kills. But, is this enough evidence to say that?

 

I made a little summary in this link: https://wildfact.com/forum/topic-tigers-...al-animals

 

I am going to copy the same here, with just some minor added information.

 

Tigers, like all the members of the Felidae family (except for the lion and cheetah), are solitary and territorial. However, there is some plasticity in the behavior of this animal, depending of many factors like prey density, habitat type and even "personal" behavior. Here I am going to share a little summary of the results of scientific studies regarding the social behavior of tigers in the Indian Subcontinent and Russia.

 

Kanha:

George Schaller was the first one that made a scientific study about tigers and its prey in the Indian subcontinent. His pioneer work is still the guide for many modern studies on tigers. He was only about one year in Kanha and he found that male tigers were territorials but that females were not, so male had "territories" while females only had "home ranges". Females shared its territory with other females except for the core areas of the home ranges. He also found that tigers were tolerant with its cubs and even shared a kill with his family (female and his cubs), but for some reason this observations were ignored for long time. So, tigers in Kanha had this social structure until the 80's, as Sunquist (1981) quote Panwar (1979) saying that after the recovery of Kanha and the new higher prey level, the tigresses began to be territorial, avoiding any contact with other females. This is the behavior found in the Nepal tigresses, which suggested that a good prey base allow tigers to be more independent and became more territorial.

 

Chitwan:

The Nepal Tiger project found that tigers in Nepal are highly territorial but the females do share they home ranges with her daughters, although sometimes there are conflicts. However, it took time to found this information. At the beginning Dr Charles McDougal (1977) believed that there was some degree of overlap between the females and that they were not territorial, however at the light of the new evidence of the radio-collared tigers he wrote an Postscript in page 165 of his book where he accepted that the home ranges of the tigresses were in fact “Territories” that are defended from other females. Dr Mel Sunquist, in his document of 1981, using radio-collared tigers, found that males are territorial and that females also have delimited territories but his sample was small. Latter Dr Dave Smith and others (1987 - 1993) found that the conclusions of Dr Sunquist were correct: male tigers are highly territorial and only allow the presence of they own sons for a short time, but nor from other males which they will expel from they territories; female tigers are also territorial but may share here territory with her daughters, although sometimes the daughters may displace they own mothers from the territory, like the case of female T-01. Females form "family clusters" like lionesses prides but each female in her own territory, even Sunquist believed that if the habitat where the same, tigers have the entire capacity to live like in groups like lions. They also found evidence of conflicts between tigers, but while this were minimum at the beginning (Sunquist, 1981) they became more serious, especially after the death of the "king" tiger M-105 (Sauraha male), and that showed that the presence of a strong male is very important for the stability of the area, especially for the females in order to produce cubs (Seindensticker, 1996). Also the larger population of Nepal tigers and the short space increased the conflicts and by the 90’s started the cases of Man-eater tigers, something that in the time of Dr Sunquist was almost unthinkable. Overall, Nepal is the best example of the "normal" tiger ecology and behavior, with a good prey base and some of the smallest territories on record. 

 

Ranthambore:

In Ranthambore, the habitat situation was different, it is more open, and is possible to follow the tigers at eye sight, something that is not possible with tigers in Nepal as the habitat is too close (Sunquist, pers. comm.). Valmik Thapar together with many other observers provide us the only long terms visual study that may compete with the Nepal Tiger Project, not only for its time frame, but also for the information obtained. In the series of books from Mr Thapar he was able to describe the ecology of the tigers and is very interesting. Thapar was the first one to describe the role of the "father" in the tiger society in his book "The Secret Life of Tigers" and he found that males DO protect they cubs and take care of them if the female is not present, he hypothesize that males protect its territory not only to preserve its females but also to protect its cubs, and the time showed how correct he is. He also saw males sharing its kills with them families, even allowing the females and cubs to eat before them, something that is not recorded even in the social male lion! In the book "Tiger: portrait of a predator" he described a reunion of nine tigers over a prey (a large nilgai) and all the tigers ate from the kill in order, with no conflict and all the feeding was regulated by the older female, the one that made the kill. He found that all the animals were related except for one, and this case was also presented in the book "Tiger: the ultimate guide". However, I found that in the book "The secret life of Tigers" Thapar do shows that that "unknown" tiger was in fact, a relative of the group, so what he saw in that moment was a "pride" behavior at a kill of related tigers, but the tigers showed a more "advance" for of sharing the kill, with no fights or conflicts (evidence of the use of they larger brains?). At the end, he got to the same conclusions that the tigers of Nepal: Male and female tigers are territorials, but males may share its territory with them sons and females do divide her territory with her daughters, however there are conflicts and severe fights may happen. New observations from modern naturalists showed male tigers sharing kills and also taking care of the cubs when the female is dead, but is sad that all this observations are scattered and not compiled in books like Mr Thapar done.

 

Panna:

The Panna studies are the first one done in the dry forests of central India. There Dr Ragu Chundawat found that the tigers were also territorial like in Nepal, but the females were not entirely and there was a great overlap between them except for a core area, just like the case of Kanha in the time of Schaller. This may be because of the prey base, which is lower than in Chitwan and Ranthambore, but also is important to show that the radio-collared tigresses were a mother and her daughters, so that may explain why the females shared some areas. Males are territorial and do not allowed any other male, but as the territory is too large (about 250 square Km) some areas can't be watched all the time and he found some transient males in the areas, that avoided the large territorial males. However conflict raised when there are females in heat and the males following them fight each other. The large male M-125 (Madla male) lost an eye in one of those conflicts. His studies were incomplete because all the tigers of Panna started to disappear and when Dr Chundawat requested for assistance to investigate the case, the park rangers ignored him and even "kick out" him from the park, the result was that Panna, like Sariska, lost all its tigers. However, with the reintroduction of tiger in Panna, Sarkar et al. (2016) found that the "new" tigers "behaved almost exactly the same way as that of native populations, offering support for reintroduction strategies."

 

New information: Dr Chundawat’s new book of 2018 compile all the information about his study in Panna and after reading it I could see that his conclusions are incredible as he found that the tigress of Panna are the territorial ones and do not allow any other tigress in they area, however the mother can amicably share some boundaries with her older daughters for short periods. Also two sisters formed a coalition for several months and not only managed to expel an older female from her territory but also hunted and lived together. Finally, although the male tigers are territorial, there are less aggressive than females, are more shy to humans and travel great distances, in fact Chundawat conclude that based in the evidence, male tigers are by no means lazy and in fact, they are great travelers to check they territory. However, there are some other members of the tiger group, the floaters, which are probably the now adult cubs of the resident females that, at not found any new territory they are forced to return to the park and they live not like “residents” but also not as “transients”. The have defined home range areas but they do not mark, they do not roar and are practically like “ghosts” for the resident adults, Chundawat called them the “leopard tigers” and he regretted that he could never radiocollarred one of them to understand his dynamics. In fact, he saw many instances when the territorial male ended the mating sessions with the local tigresses and latter one of the “leopard tigers”, a young male mated with the same tigresses and the territorial male never know of the “cheating”.  Mills (2004) mention an instance in Chitwan with the male 105 (The Sauraha male) that “tolerated” a young male in his territory until he tried to mate with a resident female and he expelled him from his territory. However with the new evidence of Panna, is possible that it was another “leopard tiger” that lived in the Sauraha male territory and made the error or follow his passions for a tigress in heat and was finally found by the territorial male an paid the price. This relation of territorial animals living with “ghosts” tigers that do not show they presence is another example of how tigers need to adapt themselves to the changing situations.   

 

Nagarahole:

In Nagarahole, Dr Ullas Karanth made a study with radio-collared tigers but his results were incredible. While the female was territorial, the males were not. In fact, in his book "The Way of the Tiger" Dr Karanth presented this conclusion, together with some form other studies, but please take in count that his data about Panna and the Russian Far East needs to be updated:

 

*This image is copyright of its original author

 

*This image is copyright of its original author

 

 

It seems that the tigers in Nagarahole do not show exactly the same behavior than the Chitwan tigers, but we must note that he don't knew if the males T-03 and T-04 were relatives of not, which may be posible based in the relations between male tigers in Chitwan and Ranthambore. Dr Karanth continues his studies so more information may be available in the future.

 

Sikhote Alin:

In the Russian Far East, the tigers should show a different behavior, especially because of the difference of habitat and prey density. The first Russian studies from Baikov do not focused too much in tiger territoriality and Heptner & Sludskii (1992) which compile all the available information in Russian literature, shows that tiger home range did overlap extensively. However, the new studies made by The Siberian Tiger Project show something different. It seems that despite the habitat difference and low prey density, male tigers are still territorial and although the overlap exists, this is still minimum. The same case happen with females, with some overlap but this is also minimum and tigers do not migrate to follow prey. Dr Dave Miquelle and Dr John Goodrich made an excellent work in the Russian Far East and shows that tigers in the area, despite the huge differences in habitat, do behave about the same than those in the Indian Subcontinent (Goodrich et al., 2010). Check the conclusions in Sunquist (2010):

 

*This image is copyright of its original author

 

Now check this table, which corroborate Dr Sunqusit conclusion, this is from (Goodrich et al., 2010):

 

*This image is copyright of its original author

 

We can see that all tigers are territorial in the Indian Subcontinent and the Russian Far East. The case of Kanha was already explained and now the females are territorial too. The case of Sumatra must be taken with caution as is very important to know if the tigers in the camera traps are related or not.

 

Also check this famous picture:

 

*This image is copyright of its original author

 

It seems that male Amur tigers shows the same protective/sharing behavior of the tigers in the Indian subcontinent. Trough time, more information will clarify the situation.

 

Mills (2004) dedicate a complete chapter 71 to 89 to explain the social section of the tigers. He made a good, but at some point, estrange explanation about what means to be a territorial animal, good because is perfect to understand the term but estrange because he use herbivores, birds and hyenas, but no cat species. At the end, in page 83 to 85 he concluded that tigresses live in clusters of related females and that will explain why the fights are very rare, but also quote the example about the tigress Maachli and how territorial she was. It seems contradictory that in this chapter he concluded that tigers are territorial or not depending of the region, habitat and even “personalities”, but latter he says that tigers only use home range. He concluded the same with male tigers in page 86 to 86, with the only difference that his example of the young tiger “Mahala Bahle” that lived “amicably” with the “Saraha male” is probably incorrect, as at the light of new evidence of Panna, we can see that even when tigers lived in the same area, this “leopard tigers”, which are resident but do not make territorial marks and no sound at all, they can live in the nose of the territorial one and they will not even note them, until they make a mistake or they gain enough strength to fight for the territory.

 

In conclusion, with this information, we can see that tigers are solitary but not antisocial. They are territorial animals that protect its habitat but that can be flexible if the habitat requires it. Tigers are able to congregate in groups in exceptional situations, but normally prefer to be solitary as is more economic to take care of yourself in an habitat that is too close to coordinate an attack and where large preys live at low densities. Females priority is a good habitat with enough prey density to feed her and her cubs, they will share the habitat with her daughters like a big scattered "pride" and may be together in exceptional cases. Males priority are large territories with enough females to mate, they may tolerate its male offspring as long as they don't attempt to mate with its females and certainly both, males and females, will not tolerate estrange tigers, because they may kill the cubs and take over the territory if they can. Fights between tigers are not the norm but do happen and are lethal, but they prefer to use they specialized method of socializing at distance. Even the lack of aggression when they are together and feeding in family may be evidence of the high degree of cephalization of this species, in comparison with the other Panthera members (Yamaguchi et al., 2009).

 

We can see that the experiment of Sankhala was taken out of context, he did not know the social status of these tigers, he don’t mention the sex, he don’t describe the age, did he knew if they were relatives? Did he observed if where territorial, transient of “leopard tigers”? Yes, some of this information was found recently, but even then, we can see how a simple and incomplete methodology derived to him that got erroneous conclusions.

 

5. Tigers do not urinate in the water

In page 72 he made an interesting observation, he says that tigers do not urinate in the water as tigers are extremely clean animals.

 

However, if you speak with the personal of Big Cat Rescue, for example, you will see that cleaning the pool of the tigers is a mayor situation, as tigers constantly defecate and urinate in the water. In fact, in the documentary of the BBC “Tiger – Spy in the jungle” we can clearly see how the tiger cubs urinate in the water and David Attenborough says that they do this to avoid other predators, they keep themselves hidden in any form.

 

6. Sundarbans tiger population

In page 88 Sankhala says that the highest concentration of tigers in India was in Sundarbans. However, he based his estimation in the pug mark method. Latter in Dr Monirul H. Khan (in Thapar, 2004) in page 94 to 95 describe how scientific methods estimate a very low density of tigers in the area, and by no means is the best tiger habitat.

 

Also Dr Karanth in his document “Tiger Ecology and Conservation in the Indian Subcontinent”, at the JBNHS Vol. 100 (page 170), states that among the current myths about tigers is the idea that “the largest wild tiger population in the world exists in Sundarbans”. There are some documents that states that the population in that area can be very large, but based in evidence like photographic capture and recapture, habitat quality and prey base, the habitat is not quite good to sustain a very large tiger population, even they morphology changed according with.

 

7. Schaller and leopards

Although this is not an error, it shows how harsh was Sankhala when he speak of other’s studies. In page 114 and 115 he mention that, in relation with tiger and leopard relationship, he says that the evidence of coexistence of leopards with lions in Gir, which should be the same case with tigers, “amply disproves George Schaller’s conclusion that leopards tend to be scarce when tigers abound and vice versa”.

 

Again, he goes after the conclusions of the only scientific study done in India at that point (until 1990 with Dr Karanth). He seems to be quite sure that this “coexistence” happens exactly in the same form in the entire Indian subcontinent. But in fact, the relation between tigers and leopards change depending of the area. In Nepal the tigers suppress, at some point, the leopard population so they live in the periphery areas, while in Nagarahole they coexist just with differences in prey base. Dr Karanth in his book “The Way of the Tiger” in page 64, make a good summarization of this relationship, but all the comparative studies conclude that whatever is the case, tigers dominate leopards.

 

Well, these are the specific points where I found that Sankhala made incorrect interpretation of the information and were we need backup of the new scientist to correct his information. It is interesting to mention that in page 101 of his book he says that the swamp deer or Barasingha is a stupid animal that do not know how to manage predators. I don’t know of any report of such a behavior in old literature and I don’t remember Dr Schaller mentioning anything about this. So, it will be interesting to see if the information is correct or not.

 

* The Good:

Now let’s see the good points on Sankhala book, this just for the sake of “fairness” in the discussion.

 

1. Tiger camouflage:

In page 25 he made a good analysis about why a predator that hunt mostly in the night will need such a camouflage and he concluded that is a form to avoid been found by the prey and disturb them in the day. It is a conclusion that makes sense, but also we must remember that tigers mostly hunted in the night not only for thermoregulation or to surprise the prey, but also because of the humans.

 

2. Tiger eating:

In page 34 to 36 Sankhala made a good description about how a tiger eats and the time that it takes to eat. Also he describe that tigers eat in intervals and not gorge itself in one session. He concludes that the amount of meat can be up to 20-30 kg but is just a calculation. By the way there is an interesting report of Dr Chundawat about the tiger food intake, I will post that information when will be relevant.

 

3. Mother eats at the end:

I don’t remember this point in other books, so I think is good to include it like a positive point. In page 36 to 37 and 73, Sankhala describes that the tigress always let the cubs eat first and that he found this observations in the wild and in captivity. In fact, he says that tigresses sometimes submit to her sons at a prey to give them courage to defend they prey. He also describe the act of regurgitate food from the tigress to her cubs in page 72-73.

 

4. Tigers eat dead cubs:

Is interesting that Sankhala says that he don’t know of any case, in the wild or in captivity, of tigresses eating they young, even been dead. He says that happen in lions, but not in tigers. I think that is fair to say that he never observed this case, but sadly it happens and Dr Karanth ad Valmik Thappar described these rare events very well.

 

5. Water is adaptive:

In page 77 and 78 I found a very interesting suggestion. Sankhala says that the likeness of water by the tigers is more an adaptive behavior than something innate to the species. He described the events of tigresses teaching they cubs to get to the water. Again, I don’t remember of a book mentioning this case.

 

6. Balance of nature:

We know that Sankhala believed that to save the tiger, the only thing that we needed to do is to leave the tiger and the nature alone and they will take care. At some point is correct, but sadly in such an anthropogenic country like India, this sounds more like a future dream than a present reality. He quote two events in page 97 and 127 about how the high populations of wild boars and gaurs are controlled by diseases and how they can recover after these vents.

 

7. Man-eaters, critics and the distorted image of the tiger:

If there is something that actually changed my mind about the man-eater cases in the chapter 7 of his book. Contrary to all the modern books, Sankhala dare to challenge the idea created by Jim Corbett about him man-eaters born, or even if they exited at all. He says that the number may be not entirely real as many of those deaths could be from many other reasons and they just blamed the tigers with no evidence. I can say that Sankhala made a good defense and that chapter is a very good reason to buy the book (maybe I can scan the entire chapter and put it here, it’s worth the reading).  Also in page 197 he defends the Project Tiger when it was labeled as “not scientifically perfect”. I think that those comments from westerners settle the path to his intolerance to foreign comments on the project and the tiger itself. Finally in page 210 he express a good idea, he says: “For one thing, I would like to see the shikar books which have distorted the tiger’s image removed from the bookshelves – though I admit that at present I do not know how to do it!” I must admit that I have the same idea, but regarding all the forums in the web full of lies and misinformation about the tiger, created by people that hate tigers and are fans of lions-bears-crocodiles, etc. etc. etc. So I share the same idea of Sankhala, to clean the tiger’s image ones for all.

 

Final conclusion:

Kailash Sankhala was an especial man, it was a very important person in the fight to save the tiger and based on his efforts with Project Tiger and for fighting about the entire system to save the great cat, he erns the title of the “Tiger man of India”.

 

His book is great and I can say that the graphics, especially those in pages 46-47, 84-85, 94-95 and 202, are among the best that I have ever saw and help to understand the tiger ecology much more. I can say that Sankhala is the last of the classic tiger experts, and although his information is important, we must take in count that there are things that are incorrect, and personally that put doubt in my mind.

 

Previously @“peter” says that our distrust of Sankhala book came from the fact that he support the lion in a fight with the tiger (page 118 and 119), or the fact that he quoted him like a source of evidence in the topic of “tiger vs dhole”, but as we can see, that is not the case at all. There are several points that show that despite his passion and love for the tiger, his conclusions were not perfect and that is why I am biased to the new studies, that started with Dr Schaller and that still continue in some areas of tiger territory.

 

As you know, I always try to focus my conclusions on the modern tiger literature, other like @“peter” often use the old literature, like those histories of tigers in the JBNHS. In fact, the last book of Valmik Thapar called “Tiger Fire: 500 Years of the Tiger in India” of 2017 is a perfect blend between the very first reports of tigers by the Emperor Babur until the last tiger studies of modern scientists like Dr Chundawat. I will definitely buy this book and will be interesting to see what we can get and learn from it.

 

Now, is this going to be my last post? I think not, but how the moderators are going to take it is a different story. Am I going to touch this topic again? Certainly not, like I say at the begging of this post, doing all this was a waste of valuable time that I could use to other things like to finish the new tables on tiger sizes, to update topics that I created like the Ngandong tiger or the share new information like that on tiger ecology in the book of Dr Chundawat in 2018. Let’s see what happen in the future, and from my part, I always whish the best to all.

 

Greetings and cheers, and until next Monday, with the help of God.

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