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

[Shadow]

(01-14-2019, 10:35 AM)Wolverine Wrote:

(01-14-2019, 08:13 AM)peter Wrote: I didn't read anything about grey wolves or dholes Arseniev's book ('Dersu the Trapper'), but Velter's book has a bit more on wolves and dholes.

During childhood I have red at least three times Arseniev's book and also don't remember even once to be mentioned any grey wolves, like they were not existing at those times in Ussuriland at all, while remember clear that Arseniev once (only once) mentioned a pack of 4 dholes he saw and once an Amur leopard. Dholes and Amur leopards inhabited only very southern part of Primorskij region, southern Sihote Alin, and it was the very northern border of their areal. In same time Amur tiger could live in much harsher climate of central Sihote Alin and partialy even in northern Sihote Alin mountain range. For sure dholes were never numerous in Russian Ussuriland, but nevertheless their extinction from the area during the 20th century is kind a mystery because they have never been persistently hunted by humans and have inhabited only remote areas.
Yes, actually the name of the dhole in Russian is exactly "Red wolf" "[]Красный волк", even this canid is quite distant from the wolf.
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Красный_волк

These photos are from safari-park close to Vladivostok:

*This image is copyright of its original author

http://vladivostok.travel/en/todo/seaside-safari-park/

*This image is copyright of its original author

Grey wolves harassing Ussuri dholes, painting:

*This image is copyright of its original author

I guess, that in those times when Arseniev wrote books, there were many tigers(?). If so, then it is natural, that not mentioning grey wolves, as far as I know wolves have been there only in times when next to nothing what comes to number of tigers. There is some studies about it, that tigers do expel grey wolves, in that dholes seem to be in better position, that they can coexist with tigers. What ever the reason is. Reply

[Wolverine]

(01-13-2019, 02:22 AM)peter Wrote: Today, however, northeastern China has not, like in 2007, over 80 tigers, but 20-30 only. That number seems to be more or less stable. It's hard to say why the number of tigers in northeastern China is relatively low.  


All in all, it seems northeastern China is just too densely populated to have a stable population of Amur tigers. The decision to create a large new reserve just southwest of the southwestern tip of Sichote-Alin suggests the Chinese agree.

Of course, human density in Primorskij region is only 11,79 persons per square kilometer:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primorsky_Krai
While human density in neigbouring Chinese Heilongjiang province is 80 persons per sq. km - 7-8 times higher:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heilongjiang



I don't know details about planned new gigantic Chinese tiger reserve and how many people live on its teritory, the idea is great, but I suspect that a lot of villages, even entire towns have to be relocated... We're gonna see. Reply

[Wolverine]

(01-14-2019, 08:13 AM)peter Wrote:  He, like others, concluded tigers seem to push wolves out. This was the main argument their used to convince hunters in Sichote-Alin to protect tigers.

The reason hunters in RFE don't like wolves and prefer Amur tigers around is that wolves seems to diminish much more efficiently the populations of local herbivores. The toll Amur tiger is getting is … lets say (theoretically)...5-10% of total population of hoofed animals annually in the area while wolf packs in case of high density of wolves could exterminate... lets say... up to 20-30% (I forgot the exact numbers) of all herbivores in the area. The result is that hunters don't have what to hunt... They know that when Amur tiger inhabit the area grey wolves will keep away or avoid hunting in this particular area, so there will be more trophies and more meat for local hunters. Sometimes I red that scientists even intimidate the RFE hunters - "Do not poach tigers because the wolves will come and that will be twice worse for you!" And such intimidation in some cases is efficient.

The triangle between Amur tiger-dhole-grey wolf is interesting and somehow resembles the triangle lion-African wild dog-spotted hyena in Africa. Of course in the nature is not such a thing as 100% domination, but in general lions almost always dominate African wild dogs, African wild dogs usually (not always) dominate spotted hyenas because dogs packs have better coordinated pack organization and better team work than hyenas, while relations between lions and spotted hyenas could be in some cases quite messy and hostile with no clear domination. 
In same way Amur tiger almost always dominate grey wolf, Northern grey wolves usually dominate dholes, while relations between dholes and tigers are more soffisticated, and they could be mutually bold to each other. I mean in the Nature if specie A dominates specie B and specie B dominates specie C that doesn't mean that specie A will dominate specie C. 

In general I think for Northern grey wolves as largest canids is typical that they are aggressive towards other smaller canids like coyotes, foxes, jackals and in same time they are scared and terrified by the big fellines especially by the tigers. Dholes are opposite case, they are quite passive towards other canids obviously suggesting them as kind of "brothers" and quite bold and even said aggressive toward felines. For sure dholes don't panic in the face of tiger.

Here only 2 dholes chase away on the tree a leopard and the spotted cat obviously afraid of them:

If this tigress was weaker probably dholes could even attack her:

In same time old paintings from British India showing dhole packs killing tigers are probably highly exaggerated, there are no fresh scientific proves for such a cases:

*This image is copyright of its original author

Reply

[GuateGojira]

(01-15-2019, 07:27 AM)Wolverine Wrote: In same time old paintings from British India showing dhole packs killing tigers are probably highly exaggerated, there are no fresh scientific proves for such a cases:

*This image is copyright of its original author

You are correct, the only two stories accepted by Sunquist & Sunquist (2002) do not establish the age of the specimens, and we know that one was a female. Mazák (1981) speculate that dholes could kill injured or ill tigers. However, since 1967 when the scientific studies beggined in India/Nepal/Russia/Thailand/Sumatra, there is NOT A SINGLE case of dholes attacking adult tigers. In fact, in the region of Karnataka, where the biggest populations of dholes exist, Dr Ullas Karanth had not found a single case of dholes attacking tigers. For the contrary, there are several cases of tigers attacking, killing and even eating dholes, despit the fact that even today large packs between 8-15 of these canids do exits. So if in 52 years of scientific study there are no cases of dholes attacking tigers, but several cases of tigers predating on dholes, I think that is conclusive to say that those stories in the old British India are just that, stories. Check this:

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

In conclusion, tigers dominate over any canid in its territory, over 50 years of scientific studies support this. Old stories and anecdotical events are not entirely reliable.


Interestingly, while there are reports and even videos of dholes harrasing leopards, there is no evidence of predatior of dholes on this great cat, but there is evidence of leopards predating on dholes. Interesting, don't you think? Reply

[johnny rex]

(01-15-2019, 07:27 AM)Wolverine Wrote:

(01-14-2019, 08:13 AM)peter Wrote:  He, like others, concluded tigers seem to push wolves out. This was the main argument their used to convince hunters in Sichote-Alin to protect tigers.

The reason hunters in RFE don't like wolves and prefer Amur tigers around is that wolves seems to diminish much more efficiently the populations of local herbivores. The toll Amur tiger is getting is … lets say (theoretically)...5-10% of total population of hoofed animals annually in the area while wolf packs in case of high density of wolves could exterminate... lets say... up to 20-30% (I forgot the exact numbers) of all herbivores in the area. The result is that hunters don't have what to hunt... They know that when Amur tiger inhabit the area grey wolves will keep away or avoid hunting in this particular area, so there will be more trophies and more meat for local hunters. Sometimes I red that scientists even intimidate the RFE hunters - "Do not poach tigers because the wolves will come and that will be twice worse for you!" And such intimidation in some cases is efficient.

The triangle between Amur tiger-dhole-grey wolf is interesting and somehow resembles the triangle lion-African wild dog-spotted hyena in Africa. Of course in the nature is not such a thing as 100% domination, but in general lions almost always dominate African wild dogs, African wild dogs usually (not always) dominate spotted hyenas because dogs packs have better coordinated pack organization and better team work than hyenas, while relations between lions and spotted hyenas could be in some cases quite messy and hostile with no clear domination. 
In same way Amur tiger almost always dominate grey wolf, Northern grey wolves usually dominate dholes, while relations between dholes and tigers are more soffisticated, and they could be mutually bold to each other. I mean in the Nature if specie A dominates specie B and specie B dominates specie C that doesn't mean that specie A will dominate specie C. 

In general I think for Northern grey wolves as largest canids is typical that they are aggressive towards other smaller canids like coyotes, foxes, jackals and in same time they are scared and terrified by the big fellines especially by the tigers. Dholes are opposite case, they are quite passive towards other canids obviously suggesting them as kind of "brothers" and quite bold and even said aggressive toward felines. For sure dholes don't panic in the face of tiger.

Here only 2 dholes chase away on the tree a leopard and the spotted cat obviously afraid of them:

If this tigress was weaker probably dholes could even attack her:

In same time old paintings from British India showing dhole packs killing tigers are probably highly exaggerated, there are no fresh scientific proves for such a cases:

*This image is copyright of its original author

Despite the drawing, I doubt a pack of dholes or any kind of canids want to mess with any male big cats. Maybe they will try to harass the females, but I'm really not sure about big males. Reply

[Spalea]

(01-15-2019, 07:27 AM)Wolverine Wrote:

(01-14-2019, 08:13 AM)peter Wrote:  He, like others, concluded tigers seem to push wolves out. This was the main argument their used to convince hunters in Sichote-Alin to protect tigers.

The reason hunters in RFE don't like wolves and prefer Amur tigers around is that wolves seems to diminish much more efficiently the populations of local herbivores. The toll Amur tiger is getting is … lets say (theoretically)...5-10% of total population of hoofed animals annually in the area while wolf packs in case of high density of wolves could exterminate... lets say... up to 20-30% (I forgot the exact numbers) of all herbivores in the area. The result is that hunters don't have what to hunt... They know that when Amur tiger inhabit the area grey wolves will keep away or avoid hunting in this particular area, so there will be more trophies and more meat for local hunters. Sometimes I red that scientists even intimidate the RFE hunters - "Do not poach tigers because the wolves will come and that will be twice worse for you!" And such intimidation in some cases is efficient.

The triangle between Amur tiger-dhole-grey wolf is interesting and somehow resembles the triangle lion-African wild dog-spotted hyena in Africa. Of course in the nature is not such a thing as 100% domination, but in general lions almost always dominate African wild dogs, African wild dogs usually (not always) dominate spotted hyenas because dogs packs have better coordinated pack organization and better team work than hyenas, while relations between lions and spotted hyenas could be in some cases quite messy and hostile with no clear domination. 
In same way Amur tiger almost always dominate grey wolf, Northern grey wolves usually dominate dholes, while relations between dholes and tigers are more soffisticated, and they could be mutually bold to each other. I mean in the Nature if specie A dominates specie B and specie B dominates specie C that doesn't mean that specie A will dominate specie C. 

In general I think for Northern grey wolves as largest canids is typical that they are aggressive towards other smaller canids like coyotes, foxes, jackals and in same time they are scared and terrified by the big fellines especially by the tigers. Dholes are opposite case, they are quite passive towards other canids obviously suggesting them as kind of "brothers" and quite bold and even said aggressive toward felines. For sure dholes don't panic in the face of tiger.

Here only 2 dholes chase away on the tree a leopard and the spotted cat obviously afraid of them:

If this tigress was weaker probably dholes could even attack her:

In same time old paintings from British India showing dhole packs killing tigers are probably highly exaggerated, there are no fresh scientific proves for such a cases:

*This image is copyright of its original author

I remember, during my childhood, to have regularly, in old books, read that both male lions and tigers could be hunted by prides of AWD as concerns the formers and by prides of dholes as concerns the latters. These old books were dated from the beginning of the XXth century. At that time, the African wild dogs and the dholes were much more numerous than today (and the same goes for lions and tigers). It was almost always eyewitness testimony or rumors making mention of 50 AWD or dholes prides against one adult big cat.

Thus, it would be possible that, at least, such prides of canids dared attack a weakened either adult or old felid... Inconceivable events now of course, because the prides of canids are not so great by far. According to these books too, these prides of canids were the real super predators of their environments. I don't believe it that much, but the balance of power was perhaps more well-balanced than nowaday. Reply

[Shadow]

(01-16-2019, 12:28 AM)Spalea Wrote:

(01-15-2019, 07:27 AM)Wolverine Wrote:

(01-14-2019, 08:13 AM)peter Wrote:  He, like others, concluded tigers seem to push wolves out. This was the main argument their used to convince hunters in Sichote-Alin to protect tigers.

The reason hunters in RFE don't like wolves and prefer Amur tigers around is that wolves seems to diminish much more efficiently the populations of local herbivores. The toll Amur tiger is getting is … lets say (theoretically)...5-10% of total population of hoofed animals annually in the area while wolf packs in case of high density of wolves could exterminate... lets say... up to 20-30% (I forgot the exact numbers) of all herbivores in the area. The result is that hunters don't have what to hunt... They know that when Amur tiger inhabit the area grey wolves will keep away or avoid hunting in this particular area, so there will be more trophies and more meat for local hunters. Sometimes I red that scientists even intimidate the RFE hunters - "Do not poach tigers because the wolves will come and that will be twice worse for you!" And such intimidation in some cases is efficient.

The triangle between Amur tiger-dhole-grey wolf is interesting and somehow resembles the triangle lion-African wild dog-spotted hyena in Africa. Of course in the nature is not such a thing as 100% domination, but in general lions almost always dominate African wild dogs, African wild dogs usually (not always) dominate spotted hyenas because dogs packs have better coordinated pack organization and better team work than hyenas, while relations between lions and spotted hyenas could be in some cases quite messy and hostile with no clear domination. 
In same way Amur tiger almost always dominate grey wolf, Northern grey wolves usually dominate dholes, while relations between dholes and tigers are more soffisticated, and they could be mutually bold to each other. I mean in the Nature if specie A dominates specie B and specie B dominates specie C that doesn't mean that specie A will dominate specie C. 

In general I think for Northern grey wolves as largest canids is typical that they are aggressive towards other smaller canids like coyotes, foxes, jackals and in same time they are scared and terrified by the big fellines especially by the tigers. Dholes are opposite case, they are quite passive towards other canids obviously suggesting them as kind of "brothers" and quite bold and even said aggressive toward felines. For sure dholes don't panic in the face of tiger.

Here only 2 dholes chase away on the tree a leopard and the spotted cat obviously afraid of them:

If this tigress was weaker probably dholes could even attack her:

In same time old paintings from British India showing dhole packs killing tigers are probably highly exaggerated, there are no fresh scientific proves for such a cases:

*This image is copyright of its original author

I remember, during my childhood, to have regularly, in old books, read that both male lions and tigers could be hunted by prides of AWD as concerns the formers and by prides of dholes as concerns the latters. These old books were dated from the beginning of the XXth century. At that time, the African wild dogs and the dholes were much more numerous than today (and the same goes for lions and tigers). It was almost always eyewitness testimony or rumors making mention of 50 AWD or dholes prides against one adult big cat.

Thus, it would be possible that, at least, such prides of canids dared attack a weakened either adult or old felid... Inconceivable events now of course, because the prides of canids are not so great by far. According to these books too, these prides of canids were the real super predators of their environments. I don't believe it that much, but the balance of power was perhaps more well-balanced than nowaday.

What comes to predation, while tiger or lion have to give up quite quickly if prey notices it and run away, wild dogs can run for kilometers constant speed. So that doesn´t sound at all odd if they have been considered "the real super predators" if success rate has been used as measurement. I haven´t looked at it, that what is success rate for wild dogs, but it is quite well known, that what comes to big cats, they usually are unsuccessful and need many attempts before catching one.

And now I same time saw one site. I am not sure how accurate this is, but I remembered myself, that tigers and lions have success rate about 10-20% so this site is quite close to that actually and maybe good enough to give some idea.

Hunting success rates: how predators compare

Looks like wild dogs really are "real super predators" :) Reply

[Spalea]

@Shadow :

You told:

"What comes to predation, while tiger or lion have to give up quite quickly if prey notices it and run away, wild dogs can run for kilometers constant speed. So that doesn´t sound at all odd if they have been considered "the real super predators" if success rate has been used as measurement. I haven´t looked at it, that what is success rate for wild dogs, but it is quite well known, that what comes to big cats, they usually are unsuccessful and need many attempts before catching one."

I just said what I read in these old books. I didn't say it was true. I didn't speak about success rate. But because the prides of AWD and dholes were much bigger than today they could represent a real threat even for the adult lions and tigers. I don't believe that, just say it could be possible as concerns a weakened adult. Reply

[Shadow]

(01-16-2019, 12:54 AM)Spalea Wrote: @Shadow :

You told:

"What comes to predation, while tiger or lion have to give up quite quickly if prey notices it and run away, wild dogs can run for kilometers constant speed. So that doesn´t sound at all odd if they have been considered "the real super predators" if success rate has been used as measurement. I haven´t looked at it, that what is success rate for wild dogs, but it is quite well known, that what comes to big cats, they usually are unsuccessful and need many attempts before catching one."

I just said what I read in these old books. I didn't say it was true. I didn't speak about success rate. But because the prides of AWD and dholes were much bigger than today they could represent a real threat even for the adult lions and tigers. I don't believe that, just say it could be possible as concerns a weakened adult.

I wasn´t talking about tigers or lions. But when in your text was said "super predator", it actually makes sense when looking at success rates and that could explain why some call them like that. When looking at success rates wild dogs beat big cats by far Reply

[Spalea]

(01-16-2019, 12:59 AM)Shadow Wrote:

(01-16-2019, 12:54 AM)Spalea Wrote: @Shadow :

You told:

"What comes to predation, while tiger or lion have to give up quite quickly if prey notices it and run away, wild dogs can run for kilometers constant speed. So that doesn´t sound at all odd if they have been considered "the real super predators" if success rate has been used as measurement. I haven´t looked at it, that what is success rate for wild dogs, but it is quite well known, that what comes to big cats, they usually are unsuccessful and need many attempts before catching one."

I just said what I read in these old books. I didn't say it was true. I didn't speak about success rate. But because the prides of AWD and dholes were much bigger than today they could represent a real threat even for the adult lions and tigers. I don't believe that, just say it could be possible as concerns a weakened adult.

I wasn´t talking about tigers or lions. But when in your text was said "super predator", it actually makes sense when looking at success rates and that could explain why some call them like that. When looking at success rates wild dogs beat big cats by far

OK agree ! Sorry I missunderstood you.

As concerns the success rate, of course the canids are the most performing predators, and this by far. Individually, the more powerfully built the predator is, the more lower its success rate is. Reply

[Shadow]

(01-16-2019, 04:47 AM)Wolverine Wrote: And here one more fascinating video:

http://www.arkive.org/dhole/cuon-alpinus/video-11b.html

This video is must see but cant be posted and could be seen only by writing URL directly in the web.

If that loading looks like to jam and circle is just rolling and rolling, push pause button and then play button and it works. For me it did that, that looked like not going to work, but then it was just ok.

Mod edit: @Shadow link is fixed now. Reply

[Jimmy]

@Wolverine they surely have uneven balance, dholes are for sure more of a threat than a leopard to the tiger so it makes sense that after tiger, dholes in pack are second on hierarchy. They are still able to harass a tiger which leopard cant do, and possibly bigger threat to cubs, In the video dholes being canines are always very curious, they know the demeneour of that particular tiger chilling in the waterhole and decided to gather information via close observation and smell probably! Reply

[GuateGojira]

(01-15-2019, 09:26 PM)Shadow Wrote: Despite the fact, that whoever filmed this footage is one of the worst possible for filming anything, we can see here how dholes are trying to harass tiger. Even though old stories are often exaggerated, sometimes in very gross way, there is often something to what those are based. Older tiger, injured tiger... dholes are for sure smart enough to notice if tiger is slower than normally etc. Maybe there are no cases, where tiger is killed, maybe then again some tiger in weakened condition has been in trouble.

What we know is, that they coexist and also some times there are situations, where they have... should I say disagreements :)

Sorry to say this, but this is the perfect example of incomplete videos that put us in danger of missinterpretate a the situation.

The video says nothing about why this conflict started, dholes are not harassing the tiger, for the contraty, it is obvious that they are trying to distract the tiger from other thing. None of the dholes got close to the tiger, there are just runing around just like wild African dogs do with lions when they try to distract the big cat from the cubs.

If you try to show that dholes are attacking a tiger here, is not a good example. In fact, we can see that the tiger killed something small there, probably a dhole cub (?). Reply

[GuateGojira]

(01-15-2019, 09:55 PM)Shadow Wrote: One more video. So I guess, that it is clear, that these species meet and interaction isn´t always friendly. Then again dholes are quite careful and obviously big respect at least what comes to healthy tigers, they seem to avoid too close range while harassing for sure tiger to the point of irritation in some situations. In this video tiger is quite calm though.

The same case, tiger pass and dholes got nervous and star to "drive" the tiger, but in this case the cat ignore them most of the time. Reply

[GuateGojira]

(01-15-2019, 11:43 PM)Shadow Wrote: Does anyone have more information about this case maybe?

http://zeenews.india.com/news/eco-news/p...77236.html

One case probably cub killed by dholes.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city...512292.cms

First case: Doesn't mention the sex or age of the tiger. In fact, only five dogs attacking a tiger seems very suspiciuos. Could be feral dogs? Maybe, as they don't afraid of any animal and are spread in many places of India in these days. So, inconclusive case of dhole attack.

Second case: Tiger cubs can be killed by many other animals in the forest. This is not evidence of dholes attacking or predating tigers directly.

Again, the videos that you posted shows that the dholes are very nervous and are trying to disctract the tiger or drive it away. Tiger, on the other hand, dominate them, attack them or simply ignore them. Reply