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ON THE EDGE OF EXTINCTION - A - THE TIGER (Panthera tigris)
ON THE EDGE OF EXTINCTION - A - THE TIGER (Panthera tigris)
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ON THE EDGE OF EXTINCTION - A - THE TIGER (Panthera tigris)
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GuateGojira
Where did you obtained body size of tigers (Bengal and other tiger subspecies for modern days)? Can you even trust many those information? If you got it from news in internet or newspaper, then you can't trust 100%. I talked to Dharmendra, and he said many tigers were actually never measured unlike in media. Whenever they capture tigers, they don't bring measuring measurement machine unless if they need to collared and other things. It depends on the situation. They just answered to news reporter or journalists just write whatever they want. Especially, if you got it from fb, then you probably need to be confirm about it to people who measured that animal. Many Asia is not willing to provide body size of their big cats because of poaching problems. My advisor worked in famous tiger national park (I am not going to mention the place to not identify myself). He said many forest department in Nepal/Bhutan are not releasing tiger information due to poaching problems. I am working on jaguars, and this is true. Big cat biologists are also a little stubborn/selfish and want to keep secret as themselves due to money/time to study big cats. And I've seen many biologists just changing answers time to time for my research until I got helped from the director of the program in the WCS. These people are also receiving 100 emails per days, especially if they are professors. Whenver you send them email about their body size, do you think they will answer back by spending hour to digging up their old info to answer nice, detailed email? I highly doubt they would. PEople like Sunquist is a very nice guy (since I saw many post that has Dr. Sunquist's email), and he really answered email nicely. I know one student who was from Florida. I heard about Sunquist. He is really nice guy, but his mind is everywhere when he teaches the class. I heard he just spoke about bird entire class when he saw one migrated bird was sitting on branch (he saw it from window) and only covered 10 mins for the lecture that day. Some people are really douchebag, and they will ignore emails. They will never answer anything. The professor that I told you I had research with him, he had around 500 unread emails in his inbox. Brother of famous Final 16 (male Siberian tiger who always beat up lions and made lion fanboys to created many different videos in youtube in the 2000s) in Everland, Korea. He was around 220-230 cm long from head to body, but his weight wasn't really heavy (I remember he was around 220-230kg?). Final 16 was 260-270kg, but I don't know about other measurement. I guess he was huge in shoulder and length as well since he was dwarfing other tigers/lions in Everland. It is all depending on each individuals regardless if it is heavy, long, and tall. Just look for human... Some humans are really tall, but slender (Kevin Garnett and Peter Crouch). Other human is really tall, but very big (Shaquille O'Neal and Great Khali). OTher human is tall, and builk (Lebron James), Other human is tall, but average in built (Son Heungmin, Michael Jordan {Jordan was not really builk, but neither slender}). Espceially, many NFL and WWE players are builk regardless their height. It is the same as felidae as well since I've been interact with many street cats. 4 cats that I know (I will named them A, B, C, D here). "A" cat is average size. "B" cat looks biggest. "C" cat looks larger than "A" and "D" cats, but smaller than "B" cat. "D" is bigger than A, but smaller than C and D. This is when you just see them with your eyes from distance. However, if you actually see them closely (which I did since I used to give them food all the time).... "C" cat is actually the tallest and longest. "B" cat has huge body, bigger head, bigger paw, and the heaviest. However, B is shorter in shoulder and length compared to C cat. He is even shorter than D cat as well. B cat looks biggest just like the same concept as people think Wagdoh and Assam tigers looks biggest since they have big body. D cat is smaller than C (bu it looks different from angle) and B cats, but he is actually heavier than C cat. My belief is he eats a lot. "A" cat is just average. So from largest to smallest.... Weight: B, D, C, A. Length: C, D, B, A. Height: C, B=D, A. Paw/body size: B, C=D, A. Skull: B, D, C, A. Observation mistake by many people since all of them ran away besides B cat (B is friendly one): B, C,or =D, A. Since they are not running away from me, I will say: B=C=D (different in each body sizes, but in overall size), A. Top 3 largest (B, C, and D) only have millimeters or few cm difference in size. It is the same for big cat including tigers. I do know body sizes of tigers in Bandhavgarh and Kanha. I am not writing their body size since friend told me to not release info of these tigers. Every large male tigers in central India such as Banda, Bokha, B2 were similar sizes as the Sauraha male tiger. Banda, Bokha, and Sauraha all bigger than other measured Chitwan tigers in the 1970s. And I am not really sure if M105 was actually more than 272 kg when he measured. I believe Bachelor or Powalgarh was huge tiger since Corbett mentioned him about stories back in the time. He may not be really long, but he probably has very big body. And there are always going to be myth and exaggeration on large size tigers, especially if it goes to 1800s to early 1900s. The same for animals like whales, crocodiles, sharks, bears, snakes, and any other large animals. The book Peter asked about me, this book mentioned about two male Korean tigers above 310 kg. However, what about today's Siberian tigers in Russia? I changed my mind as we should conclude from the measurement from scientific study, not old records if we have to decide 100%. That is why percent error is exist in every science field. Thus, just because some tiger is either heavier in empty body or longer in length. There is no way to tell which is actually bigger, the same for populations. Bigger or smaller individuals are everywhere in each populations. However, I believe there are more numbers of larger individuals located in northern India/Nepal compare to other parts of India. Sorry for my disorganize email, but I don't really have time to write post in wildfact now. It is the great post by the way, I can still earn some knowledge from it. You should mention where did you get the source for other subspecies of tigers.  (01-07-2020, 07:08 AM)peter Wrote: GUATE Great to know that @peter, for this project I will definitelly will make time for it. About your tables, I will be very happy to help you with that. About Dr Jhala and Ranthambore, it seems that he keep information of many tiger in many regions, not only Central India. After all, Ranthambore is just an "island" in the middle of nowere and make sense that he manage information of the tigers in that area. However, like I said before, based in the documents that I have saw the tigers radiocollared and measured are 3 adult males, 1 adult female, 3 subadult males and 1 subadult female; as far I know the largest male in that area, actually weighed, is the male "Ustad" T-24 with a confirmed weight of 240 kg when he was ill (probably weighed more latter, I don't have more data of him). Tigers in the Gwalior region, which is the area were the current Ranthambore tigers came, are famous for been really huge, in fact, 3 of the 6 extra large tigers came from that area. Even more impresive, if we take in count all the male tigers recorded from that area (220, 240, 268, 272, 276 & 281) we got an impresive avreage of 259.5 kg! Obviously that figure is not reliable as it takes in count three exceptional specimens, but is still very interesting to see those huge males in that area. However, we most remember that the biggest specimens could be baited, which will increase the weights, I discussed this already in other topic. I will be ready for your next communication, greetings my friend. 
The largest Tiger that is claimed to be 290kg one was from Kanha, if i remember correctly but @Shadow wasn't able to get or didnt post confirmation on that.
"Shadow Wrote: I got reply again concerning this possible "very big tiger", but this expert said that he simply don´t know about this case (possibly 345 kg tiger). At least not yet. He mentioned, that with full belly a tiger can have up to 40 kg extra weight. I mention this because there seem to be some different kind of opinions about it. I assume that this number is for very big male tigers, while estimations about 30 kg or so are for smaller/average individuals. Some things stayed unclear, because this person has been busy, but he told that he checks his data sheets and then tells about that biggest tiger he had darted and weighed. I will put that information then here, that tiger is from Kanha tiger reserve."
@GuateGojira, when they were translocating tigers from Ranthambore to Sariska, they measured the tigers. ST-1 also knows as Rajour weighed 220 kilos. In the video, he seems like an average tiger. ST-6 or Baghani (daughter of Machli) weighed in at a very impressive 170 kilo. There were other tigers measured as well. I can’t find their weights, though.
(01-07-2020, 10:05 PM)Ashutosh Wrote: @GuateGojira, when they were translocating tigers from Ranthambore to Sariska, they measured the tigers. ST-1 also knows as Rajour weighed 220 kilos. In the video, he seems like an average tiger. ST-6 or Baghani (daughter of Machli) weighed in at a very impressive 170 kilo. There were other tigers measured as well. I can’t find their weights, though.  *This image is copyright of its original author I'll be honest, I find more discrepancy in their weights than Truth. A few cases to point out.... Ustaad *multiple weights claimed, all very different from one another* Jhumroo *claimed to be 280kg later said to have not been weighed at all* T-12 *claimed to be 170kg male but most who have seen him say there is no way* Machli *claimed to be 170kg but I have seen no one confirm that weight to my knowledge* (01-07-2020, 01:06 PM)Greatearth Wrote: Where did you obtained body size of tigers (Bengal and other tiger subspecies for modern days)? Can you even trust many those information? If you got it from news in internet or newspaper, then you can't trust 100%. I talked to Dharmendra, and he said many tigers were actually never measured unlike in media. Whenever they capture tigers, they don't bring measuring measurement machine unless if they need to collared and other things. It depends on the situation. They just answered to news reporter or journalists just write whatever they want. Especially, if you got it from fb, then you probably need to be confirm about it to people who measured that animal. Wow, there is a lot to cover in your post, I will try to focus in the important points: 1. Source of the data: About Indian tigers, only 21 of the 166 came from modern scientific sources, the others are from hunting records from sources that we classified as "reliable". From the 21 males, only 4 came from news reports: a - Tiger "Gabbar" with 185 kg at Tadoba - Jadhav reported it in an article in 2015, but @Pckts confirmed the figure in an email. b - Old male of 197 kg at Kahna - It came from an article of 2014 from the 21st Century Tiger webpage. c - Tiger S-T1 "Darra" male of 220 kg in Ranthambore/Sariska - Confirmed by personal communication with Neha Sinha (the same with the females that she reported in her articles). d - Tiger T-24 "Ustad" male of 240 kg in Ranthamore - Reported by Khandal in a report in 2015, and confirmed trough email to other poster (don't remember who, maybe @Pckts or @tigerluver, I don't remember). The other 17 males came from scientific documents only. From the large list of tigers shared in the topic of "Modern Measurements of tigers" I did not use any of them, as we need verification of all those figures, although I think that the communication of the two adult male tigers in Kanha of "over 227 kg" is reliable, but I will like to double check. About the hunting sources, many people don't believe on them (Karanth & Yamaguchi) but others do (Sunquist & Schaller) so it will be always open to question, however sources like Brander, Hewett and the Maharaja of Cooch Behar has been allways at the top of the reliability even after several questionings. About Russian Far East tigers, you have my old tables from 2015 check the figures and the sources. The sources are reports from the Siberian Tiger Project itself, or webpages from reliable scientific asociations or confirmations by emails of several scientists that worked with those tigers in the field. Also you can see the sources for the tigers in the old records, all of them follow the 4 steps protocol that Slagth et al. (2005) used to clasified if a record is relaible or not. For the Caspian tigers, the weights came from Heptner & Sludskii (1992) and Mazák (2013). Indochina tigers came from Dr Simcharoen et al. in a document in 2012; the 3 hunting records came from Pocock (1939), Mazák (2013) and Bazé (1957). From those from South China tigers it was more dificult and and used as reference to Allen (1938), Brown, (1893), Downess (2000), Inverarity (1911), Kun et al. (1998) and Wan & Hu, 1999; more sources were also used for the sample of the skulls of this subspecies/population. For Sumatran tigers I used many sources, only one came from news papers (female of 75 kg). I leave this old image as it summarize all my sources:  *This image is copyright of its original author Please take in count that the small "male" of 73 kg is no longer taked in count in my new calculation for the reasons that already explained in my previous post to you. For the Java tiger, the sources are Hoogerwerf (1970), Sody (1949), Slagth et al. (2005) and Mazák (2013). For Bali tigers, the sources are Buzas & Farkas (1996), Mazák (2013), Mazák et al., (1977) and Sody (1949). 2 - Share of data: The excuse that people do not share the information because of poaching issues make no sense at all. I mean, poachers are not looking the biggest tiger, they just search any tiger that they can catch, they don't care about its size, age or if is dominant or not. Actually most of the tigers poached are young specimens with no territory. I can believe in that "professional zeal" do exist and I am 100% that is the main reason why they keep the data, but poaching is just not logic. Even worst, why they will keep the date secret? They should published, like the Siberian Tiger Project or the Smithsonian/Nepalese tiger project done before. However it seems that modern scientists are more focused in ecological issues than in morphological issues, and they may be right. At least scientists from Africa did published the data of they lions and leopards and that is why the information of those species is more abundant in this point. 3 - Morphology and modern tigers: About the tiger M-105 "Sauraha", we confirmations from Sunquist, Smith and Dinerstein that the male was actually weighed and that did weighed over 272 kg as it was the largest scale available, the figure of 261 kg came from a chest girth-weight equation and the figure of 260 kg that I normally use is my estimation of the weight empty belly. There is no reason to doubth of the data of the Smithsonian/Nepalese tiger project. Morphology is a tricky issue, as I described before to you, body can change and I think that you more or less take the idea: similar size do not means similar weight. A long tiger may be less heavier than a short but stockier one, this is even discussed in the old hunting litterature and that is why people like the Maharaha of Cooch Behar and the scientists of the Siberian Tiger Project collected a full set of measurements for they specimens. So, can we say if a population is larger than other? It depends of how you interprete the data. For example a person can say that 4 males from Nepal is to few to say that they are the largest, but other people can say that from 4 males 2 are already over 600 lb, and they were captured with no bias. So it depends of the data, and for the moment, the biggest tigers have been captures in the norther region of India/Nepal, although new date from Dr Jhala may show new figures from Ranthambore and Kanha. Hope this helps to clarify some of your questions.
GuateGojira
You only talk through them in email, but I know big cat people now. My advisor worked as forest department and rangers in the tiger national park before he became professor. So I am sure his word is more accurate than what you said about "2 - Share of data:." Africa is completely different story than Asia. I read somewhere that you are personal friend with John Goodrich, Dale Miquelle. However, I think I read somewhere (in Indochinese tiger wildfact) that he never answered you back after one email. You do know Goodrich is very busy person and he has daughters, right? Why would he (or other big cat biologists) spend several hours to write emails to someone he doesn't know and not even working save big cats? From my experience of big cats, I would not trust unless if it is published sources just like other tiger subspecies you mentioned. Those data can be trusted since it seemed peer reviewed. I recently read Pcket wrote about the guide name Paulo about Adriano. This is the same issue. (01-07-2020, 10:05 PM)Ashutosh Wrote: @GuateGojira, when they were translocating tigers from Ranthambore to Sariska, they measured the tigers. ST-1 also knows as Rajour weighed 220 kilos. In the video, he seems like an average tiger. ST-6 or Baghani (daughter of Machli) weighed in at a very impressive 170 kilo. There were other tigers measured as well. I can’t find their weights, though. This table summarize the data that I could found about the tigers captured and transported to Sariska:  *This image is copyright of its original author Now, about the size estimated by "eye" we must be very carefull as there is HUGE margin of error in the apreciation of size from person to person. The figures were confirmed by the authors, stating that they received the figures from the Wildlife Institute of India. There are some doubts about the figures, for example the tigress ST-02 was to young to weight 170 kg and there is no consesus about the weight of the tigers ST-4. One say 170 kg, other say over 200 kg, this is a picture of him, you can judge by yourself:  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author I don't have information about tigress ST-6 or Baghani, but like @Pckts said, there are consufions, and like @ * Ustaad - several weights reported after its capture, just one was confirmed, at least. * Jhumroo - a news article claimed to be 280kg later said to have not been weighed at all. * T-12 - one article says it was 170 kg but other people say it can't be so low. Pictures of the tigers, on the other side, do not show an animal of exceptional size at all. Famous tigers like Machli, Charger (the original from Bandhavgarh) and B2 were also reported with figures of up to 300 kg, but none of them were weighed at all. That is why I keep my data only with the figures corroborated. By the way, about the tiger "Gabbar" with 185 kg at Tadoba, I have my suspects that this figure was real but it was taken when this male was not adult but a subadult, as a report from the Time of India says that the 15 captured tigers (at 2019) were subadults, and is included Gabbar and Choti Tara, maybe some one can confirm this. (01-07-2020, 10:34 PM)Greatearth Wrote: You only talk through them in email, but I know big cat people now. My advisor worked as forest department and rangers in the tiger national park before he became professor. So I am sure his word is more accurate than what you said about "2 - Share of data:." Africa is completely different story than Asia. I read somewhere that you are personal friend with John Goodrich, Dale Miquelle. However, I think I read somewhere (in Indochinese tiger wildfact) that he never answered you back after one email. You do know Goodrich is very busy person and he has daughters, right? Why would he (or other big cat biologists) spend several hours to write emails to someone he doesn't know and not even working save big cats? I think that there is "language barrier" in this moment, because I never said anything about the accuracy of your advisor, please read my post again, two or three times. Also, I never said that I am a personal friend of Dr Goodrich or Dr Miquelle, where you read that???? I only said that I had a few communications with him just to corroborate two weights, but that is all. I also never said that he did not answer me back after one email. Again, where you read that???? What I said, if I remember, was that I tried to make a question but the email that I have from him is no longer in use (it was several years after my last question to him), so I could not confirm my question. It is pretty weird that you are saying all this, honestly I request a backup for your claims. I respect your personal experience, but you just can't discredit the reports of conversations of all the people just because you don't "believe" on them. For example, the conversations of @Pckts are very usefull so why you want to discredit them? I simple don't understand this new attitud from you.
GuateGojira
REad careful what I wrote. When did I disrespect your claim? That is just your personal emotion from reading the post. I feel like you are the one who has new attitude problem reading your last post, don't you think? Of course, they would be keep more secret if it is about tiger individuals in the different locations or their home ranges I clearly remember I read that you know John and Dale in other place in 2 years ago. I am not going to spend time to find that post. And about Pckts, I read about jaguar name Adriano. The guide name Paolo once said Adriano was 158 kg from Panthera. Then it claimed Adriano was only 130 kg. Pckts wrote Panthera gave wrong answer or something to Paolo about Adriano's weight. That's why I said big cat people just change answer time to time. (01-07-2020, 11:00 PM)Greatearth Wrote: REad careful what I wrote. When did I disrespect your claim? That is just your personal emotion from reading the post. I feel like you are the one who has new attitude problem reading your last post, don't you think? There are no emotions here, just confusion, because you said that "his word is more accurate than what you said about", so I ask, about what? Second, you complain is regarding my comment about the "secrecy" in the records? Because if it is for that, I appoligize, but you must accept that poachers are not searching an especific tigers, they want to hunt them ALL, independintly of its fame, size or sex. Third, I DO ask you to back up your claim. You say "I clearly remember I read that you know John and Dale in other place in 2 years ago". So it is time to you to spend time and search it, because you are accusing me that I said something that I never said at all. I never claimed that ANY scientist is my personal friend or anything like that. In fact, the only two people from which I have more conversations are Dr Sunquist and Dr Hoogesteijn and those are just conversations of question-and-answer, which is far from a "personal friendship", althouth they know that I respect them greatly. So yes, I ask you for evidence of your claim, because I am tired of people making lies about me in the web. If you don't present evidence, then we will know who is the liar here. (01-07-2020, 09:55 PM)Pckts Wrote: The largest Tiger that is claimed to be 290kg one was from Kanha, if i remember correctly but @Shadow wasn't able to get or didnt post confirmation on that. Yes, to me has been said, that 280-290 kg. But the person with whom I have changed some emails is a very busy person. I haven´t forgot that, but I just can´t tell more until I get confirmation/more information. But yes, that weight was mentioned concerning a male tiger in Kanha and with stomach content. Sometimes it takes time with busy people. Like with Kamchatka bear Peter the Great it took something like 1-2 months and in that case I was trying to get information from the zoo. They just didn´t have time until most busy time was over. I´m very eager to know more myself too, but time will tell when it´s possible to write more. (01-07-2020, 09:55 PM)Pckts Wrote: The largest Tiger that is claimed to be 290kg one was from Kanha, if i remember correctly but @Shadow wasn't able to get or didnt post confirmation on that. This is quote from first reply: "The 345 kg seems far fetched. Please let me know the source of your information. I have radio-collared several tigers and the heaviest was around 280-290 kg. But this too is due to a full belly (fully fed). " And this from second: "The heaviest tiger I have weighed was in Kanha tiger reserve "Punch Kata", I shall check my data sheets and give you the weight but as I said close to 280-290kg. I have not darted tigers in the Terai (Himalayan foot hills - Kumaon, Rajaji, Corbett, Dudhwa etc.) so cannot comment if they are larger. But I do not see that they are much different in size then central Indian or Western Indian tigers (Ranthambore). " That is all what I can put here at this point. (01-07-2020, 11:24 PM)Shadow Wrote:(01-07-2020, 09:55 PM)Pckts Wrote: The largest Tiger that is claimed to be 290kg one was from Kanha, if i remember correctly but @Shadow wasn't able to get or didnt post confirmation on that. I'm not sure how he can't see the difference between the 2 though. All of us here have viewed Tigers all our lives and I'm not sure there is a single person who doesn't look at them and think they aren't larger than others, at least in Photographs. That's not including peoples first hand accounts who've seen both, saying the same.
GuateGojira
I am not going to waste my time with arguing/proving. I did not disrespect or insult your claim. If you think I insult you, then believe that. Believe what you want and think I am a liar. About John and Dale.,, I may have been read wrong (I didn't read careful, I only skim through it) or remember wrong since it was two years ago about what I read between you and other user were arguing in wildfact. About advisor.. Big cat people won't clearly provide accurate information unless you know that person in real life. Dhamendra said Ustad was never measured. Now, I hear completely different claims by other users in wildfact here about Ustad's weight. From what I experienced abot jaguar dudes, I clearly having doubt about big cat people. Their answers are no stable. They just change time to time. They are making excuses to keep their information secret. At least, that's still polite. It's much better than douches who are just ignoring emails like the guy in San Diego zoo and many douches from Panthera. I lost respect on many big cat biologists (jaguar people at least) from their rude behaviors. They probably never been educated from their parents when they were young. That's what I mean. |
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