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Tiger Predation
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 (11-08-2015, 07:55 PM)Brehmji Wrote: I agree with Dr. Panthera, even a young elephant is an massive task to cope with. About one year back, i saw a documentary about lion's and buffalo's on the french/german channel "arte", where it was shown how difficult it is to kill even a young elephant. It showed a sequence where the lion pride, which was used to hunt buffalo's most of the time, was forced to switch to elephant's for a short time because the buffalo herd moved to the area of a neighbouring pride. They managed to take down a young elephant of about 5 years, but they couldn't kill him with a throat bite because of the thick skin. After some time of trying, the lion's decided to eat the elephant alive. The narrator commented also that the featured lion pride had no experience in hunting elephants before. I forgot the location, but i think it was Okavango Delta... Absolutely, the Arte documentary you are referring to is " Lions Behaving Badly" as if eating the prey alive is bad behavior!! Cats attempt the killing bite first then eat but if the prey is immobilized and can not move anyway and possesses dangerous horns and/or tusks than eating it alive from the rump makes perfect sense, the animal will die of blood loss eventually, and practically in most attacks of any solitary cat on a very large animal ( over 1000 LBS or 450 kg ) this what happens. Young elephants however have childhoods similar to humans, long childhood, protective mothers and aunts, and this protection in a way delays the development of their anti-predator behavior , young bovids on the other hand will need to fight back to survive at an earlier age. An adult elephant will break the skeleton of a tiger or a lion with one kick or if it tramples the unfortunate predator, the trunk can easily lift 270 kg ( 600 LBS) and throw it away ten meters, with the exception of highly experienced elephant hunting prides in Botswana and Zimbabwe ( Joubert, Loveridge respectively) , predation on elephants over age of ten is almost non existent . Despite my admiration of Jim Corbett as a pioneer on tiger conservation and a great hunter and writer, the account where he states that villagers told him that two tigers fought an all night long battle with a tusker Asian elephant ( male) that left a dead elephant and wounded tigers can not be seriously taken, I mean consider these points: 1-Second hand account where the first source are "villagers" the same people who could not tell Schaller the difference between a chital stag and a chital doe. 2-A battle at night, in a dense forest, at a time and place in India where there was no electricity or night vision equipment would surely be extremely difficult to witness under moonlight and fire torches. 3-Tusks become visible around age 3 to 4 , so if this was the age category where even a single tiger can kill a calf that age then yes but an adult male wild Asian elephant is more than a match to any tiger or pair of tigers.  (11-08-2015, 09:54 PM)Dr Panthera Wrote: Absolutely, the Arte documentary you are referring to is " Lions Behaving Badly" as if eating the prey alive is bad behavior!! Cats attempt the killing bite first then eat but if the prey is immobilized and can not move anyway and possesses dangerous horns and/or tusks than eating it alive from the rump makes perfect sense, the animal will die of blood loss eventually, and practically in most attacks of any solitary cat on a very large animal ( over 1000 LBS or 450 kg ) this what happens.  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author The account is seems reasonable to me, just watching the Tigress jump atop the Elephant in Kaziranga out of the tall grass shows that they are capable of getting plenty high on an initial attack to begin to do damage before the elephant can defend it self. (11-12-2015, 03:46 AM)Pckts Wrote:(11-08-2015, 09:54 PM)Dr Panthera Wrote: Absolutely, the Arte documentary you are referring to is " Lions Behaving Badly" as if eating the prey alive is bad behavior!! Cats attempt the killing bite first then eat but if the prey is immobilized and can not move anyway and possesses dangerous horns and/or tusks than eating it alive from the rump makes perfect sense, the animal will die of blood loss eventually, and practically in most attacks of any solitary cat on a very large animal ( over 1000 LBS or 450 kg ) this what happens. I have seen tigers and lions jumping on elephants backs many times, they are excellent jumpers, they will attempt to bite the spine and injure the elephant, my point is collapsing a giant of 4 to 8 tons ( from the smallest Asian elephant bull to the largest African elephant )will take a lot of work and most probably several big cats. Your account confirms my point: Corbett has not witnessed anything except the elephant carcass and was stating his understanding of what might have happened of what the villagers told him. I have no doubt that a pair of mating tigers are a formidable hunting unit but I will bet my bottom dollar on a big male elephant repelling their attack.  Quote:Despite my admiration of Jim Corbett as a pioneer on tiger conservation and a great hunter and writer, the account where he states that villagers told him that two tigers fought an all night long battle with a tusker Asian elephant ( male) that left a dead elephant and wounded tigers can not be seriously taken, I mean consider these points:I can understand the reasons if you dont want to take this account seriously, but at least two of them are not necessarily arguments against it in my opinon. 1- That speaks not for the reputation of "villagers" as zoologists, right:) But the reason for that was maybe just an (local) indian behaviour. In some places (if not most, but i dont want to generalize, because i didnt visit every place in india), average indian's tend to "generalize" animal's of the same category. For example lions and tigers are both called "sheer", they have of course their own terms ("Bagh" for tiger and "Babbar Sheer" for lion) but in general "sheer" is used for both. I don't know the indian word for elk, but where i come from, people just called them "northern Barasinga", as another example. Some other member's, who are currently living in india, could tell more about this possibly....would be interested if it's just a local behaviour or not. But i can totally understand, if this is irritating for somebdy who perhaps dont knows about this. 2 - Indeed, but this means also that the exact occurence couldnt be witnessed and therefore many details (in favour + against this account) cant be known. Perhaps the elephant was injured before or suffered from a serious injury during the fight...It could also has some similiarities to the eland kill of the leopard, where the eland broke one of his legs - if i remember right. At night, tigers for sure have a advantage over elephants concerning vision. To a certain point, they could have capitalzied on it. 3 - I agree with that, therefore i see this account as one time event which occurs perhaps once in every 100 years. And then only with many circumstances in favour of the tigers.
I will take villagers words and corbetts over any else. Biologist seek out villagers when tracking animals, these people live their life side by side with these cats. They know more about them than any of us, their lives have been entangled for centuries. Corbett wasn't a gullible man, he believes it to be true and thus, so do I.
(11-13-2015, 10:08 PM)Pckts Wrote: I will take villagers words and corbetts over any else. Biologist seek out villagers when tracking animals, these people live their life side by side with these cats. They know more about them than any of us, their lives have been entangled for centuries. Corbett wasn't a gullible man, he believes it to be true and thus, so do I. Yes and they think that jaguars use their tails to hunt fish, and hyenas piss on people and entrance them and kill them, and hyenas change sex from male to female as they wish, and leopards favor baboons as prey, crocodiles use their tails to catch prey versus jaws...etc...etc. It is one thing to use their local knowledge and expertise to assist in the actual study of a species and another to include their tales as facts in the scientifically documented knowledge of a species ( a fact will be recorded or discovered by science ). I am not dissing the observations of non-scientists ...I am saying it can not be accepted without verification or videographic/photographic evidence ..I told you that I saw a male zebra bite and chew and new born Thomson's gazelle to death in the Serengeti...if I had videotaped that all zebra books will be modified...but I did not and therefore I can not use this incident despite witnessing it. Yet of course many things that science verified and recorded were taken from the cultural and traditional knowledge in many areas, nowadays their reports and observations can help improve what we know but can not be considered "references".
You aren't comparing apples to apples. To generalize one statement compared to another is wrong. There are multiple people who heard it go on all night, to simply say, "nope, never happened" because they didn't go to school is wrong. Exaggerations happen, of course, but there is nothing here that isn't outside of the realm of normal. Tigers have preyed on elephant, absolute fact. Tigers have hunted as pairs or families, fact. So because it was against a Bull you want to say no?
"I told you that I saw a male zebra bite and chew and new born Thomson's gazelle to death in the Serengeti...if I had videotaped that all zebra books will be modified...but I did not and therefore I can not use this incident despite witnessing it." This isn't an unheard of event. I can show you deer preying on birds, warthogs feeding on other herbivores etc. But back to the point, Corbett absolutely believes it, he knows the capabilities of tigers better than any of us. I will take his word over any biologist alive today, no amount of school will ever prepare you the way real life observations will. The facts are -Loud fighting heard through out the night between two tigers and 1 Bull Elephant -Dead elephant found -The injuries found on the elephant it was obvious that it was from a tiger attack 
http://shaggygod.proboards.com/board/38/felidae
While nearly all animals have a particular area which they frequent-as the low coast region, the plateaus of these tropical lands, or the higher parts of the mountains-the rhinoceros lives indifferently anywhere between the sea-shores and the tops of the highest peaks. This species has two " horns," the first being the longer and more sharply pointed, but the Java species has only one. The natives here know nothing of the frequent combats between these animals and elephants, that are so frequently pictured in popular works on natural history. The Resident has, however, told me of a combat between two other rivals of these forests that is more remarkable. When he was controleur at a small post, a short distance north of this place, a native came to him one morning, and asked, if he should find a dead tiger and bring its head, whether he would receive the usual bounty given by the government. The Resident assured him that he would, and the native then explained that there had evidently been a battle between two tigers in the woods, near his kampong, for all had heard their howls and cries, and they were fighting so long that, he had no doubt, one was left dead on the spot. A party at once began a hunt for the expected prize, and soon they found the battle had not been between two tigers, as they had supposed, but between a tiger and a bear, and that both were dead. The bear was still hugging the tiger, and the tiger had reached round, and fastened his teeth in the side of the bear's neck. The natives then gathered some rattan, wound it round them, just as they were, strung them to a long bamboo, and brought them to the office of the Resident, who gave a full account of this strange combat in his next official report. Source: Travels in the East Indian archipelago (Albert Smith Bickmore)
Mrs. Maya with a fresh Sambar kill
Credit to Rangarao Rvskk "Maya with fresh sambar kill at Tadoba lake and panchdara junction on November 22nd morning safari. When we saw the scene first the sambar was still alive. Mesmerising moment as I'm seeing maya as a cub from 2011."  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author Looks like she was in need of a nice meal, glad she got one. 
Lalit Deshmukh Landscape and Fine Art Photography:
Even for a powerful tigress, dragging the meal as heavy as her is sometimes a very hard task. We watched her pause every minute after a few meter drag. Notice the action of her fore and hind legs.  *This image is copyright of its original author
(11-21-2015, 05:44 AM)Pckts Wrote: You aren't comparing apples to apples. To generalize one statement compared to another is wrong. There are multiple people who heard it go on all night, to simply say, "nope, never happened" because they didn't go to school is wrong. Exaggerations happen, of course, but there is nothing here that isn't outside of the realm of normal. Tigers have preyed on elephant, absolute fact. Tigers have hunted as pairs or families, fact. So because it was against a Bull you want to say no? The record remains dubious , if you want to consider stories by indian villagers hearing noises at night and take that as a fact go ahead, single tigers do kill elephant calves on rare occasions and they do team up on hunts rarely as well, so the possibility of them attacking and killing an adult elephant is possible but very very unlikely, the strength of the tiger is immense but it remains unlikely to overcome a healthy adult elephant. I have researched tiger predatory behaviour since 1985 and analyzed over 25 studies that totalled thousands of kills and scats and found a total of 4 elephant kills, all juveniles, 4 out of 28000 plus record is not worth mentioning or wasting time discussing. Warthogs like all pigs are omnivores and have the dentition and digestive ability to eat meat, deer chewing birds and caribou chewing lemmings have been rarely observed and beg the question of how and why this is done they remain interesting observations. Corbett is a respectable hunter and conservationists and that is that ..we have an excellent volume of scientific studies on Panthera tigris from Chitwan , Bardia , Sundarban, Nagarhole, Bandipur, Sariska, Ranthambhore, Kahna, KKH, Way Kambas, and Sikhote-Alin to fill thousands of pages scientific facts about tigers, we know now what is tiger ecology and what is myth, old hunter stories serve a historical value and are no longer a component of verified tiger literature . (11-27-2015, 01:53 AM)Dr Panthera Wrote:(11-21-2015, 05:44 AM)Pckts Wrote: You aren't comparing apples to apples. To generalize one statement compared to another is wrong. There are multiple people who heard it go on all night, to simply say, "nope, never happened" because they didn't go to school is wrong. Exaggerations happen, of course, but there is nothing here that isn't outside of the realm of normal. Tigers have preyed on elephant, absolute fact. Tigers have hunted as pairs or families, fact. So because it was against a Bull you want to say no? By all respect towards science and your scientific and personal research/experience, but not everything can't be (and dont has to be in some case...) scientifically verified to consider if it's true or not. Also, nature doesn't always act like it's written in books as we know....Raja's famous video is the best example. Almost in every book, the way tigers taking down big prey like gaur is described in the same way (attack from behind etc...), but what do we see in the first video captured gaur kill ever? A full frontal charge, followed by an almost peaceful act of killing! Im not questioning the credibility of verified scientific literature etc (tigers will kill big prey most likely the way its described), but this example shows, that there is more diversity than one could expect. In Corbett's case there are too many unknown factors to label this story as fictional tale IMO. Of course, also too many to consider it as fact, if somebody disagree's... But a dead elephant as result of a noisy night with scars originating from tigers sounds pretty convincing to me, that tigers were the reason for the bulls death. 
TIGERS AND ELEPHANTS
While there's no doubt that tigers today only very seldom attack elephants, there also is no doubt that the situation was different in the recent past (1850-1950). This post has a few scans from old books. Books written by hunters, planters and forest officers. I didn't post observations of American hunters made between 1950-1980 in other parts of southeast Asia (in many cases, they sat up over elephants killed by tigers). Remember the intention is not to prove one right or wrong. The aim is to show that patterns (can) change over time. Assam Frank Nicholls was a tea planter in Assam. Well after he had retired, he decided to write a book about his experiences between 1911-1952 ('Assam Shikari', Auckland, 1970). What he knew about tigers and elephants was based on personal experience and information of forest officers. Here's what he concluded:  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author The Himalayas George Hogan Knowles, a writer by profession, published 'In the grip of the jungles' (London, 1932 - reprinted by Natraj Publishers in 2007 - I have the reprint). The book is about his experiences in British India. Knowles has to be taken seriously: " ... If there is a man fully equipped to write a book, ..., it surely is this author, who has spent over thirty years roaming in that wonderful land. He has left his footprints everywhere betwixt Bombay and the topmost heights of the mighty Himalayas. He has trodden the unknown ways of the jungle and lived the life of the people ... " (pp. ix). Knowles witnessed fights between wild animals and saw large tuskers fight tigers. One of them, a mighty elephant, was attacked by a very large male tiger shot through the lungs. In spite of his injury (he was unable to roar), the tiger nearly killed the elephant. When he retreated to take a break, the elephant bolted. He was so badly mauled, that the mahout 'died of a broken heart'. The big male elephant struggled for many months, but eventually survived (pp. 149-151). In another story ('Saved from a rogue elephant'), a male elephant was seen at close range by Knowles and a friend. The rogue had encountered a large male tiger and he had been badly wounded in the fight with no winner (pp. 200-201). There are more stories about big male tigers and big male elephants in the book. All are firsthand accounts. There is no question whatsoever that they met and fought at times. Burma This photograph has been posted before. Thoms hunted in Burma, where tigers attacked large animals by hamstringing them. Young elephants were also hunted. This large male tiger, 9.4 'between pegs' and very heavy, had killed and largely consumed a young elephant a few days before he was shot by Thoms:  *This image is copyright of its original author Smythies At the moment, I'm posting on his book 'Big game shooting in Nepal'. Smythies was Chief Conservator of Forests U.P. In December 1939, he wrote a letter to the JBNHS (Vol. 39, pp. 654-655). As I assume the battle between two tigers and a full-grown bull elephant is well-known, I decided against posting the scan of the letter. The message is there was a fight and the bull was killed. The fight took place " ... before eye-witnesses, and within ear-shot of many more ... " (JBNHS, pp. 655). His book on Nepal, by the way, is loaded with accounts of tigers attacking full-grown captive elephants, bulls included. It's of course a fact that they were cornered, but they did it anyhow and one tiger succeeded in pulling down an elephant. The consequences were quite terrible. To conclude As said before, there's much more on wild tigers and wild elephants. The conclusion is that predation on young elephants was not uncommon half a century ago. Attacks on adult elephants have always been rare, but rare is different from never. Fights between male tigers and bull elephants have been recorded in the recent past in northern India. Indian tigers hardly ever attack elephants today. One possible reason is wild elephants have been decimated over the years. Another is male tigers do not have the opportunity to follow the herds anymore. I agree with Dr. Panthera that most incidents between tigers and elephants were not witnessed by reliable observers. I also agree that documents of biologists are more reliable than most books. That, however, doesn't mean that the incidents discussed in this post never happened. Furthermore, one has to realize that even peer-reviewed documents written by experienced biologists can be incomplete and even misleading. What you write depends on what you see. Linda Kerley, in a recent study discussed in the extinction thread, admitted that the accepted ideas about tigers and bears in Russia may have to be adapted. It takes time to get to a true picture. And then there's the question on what a reliable witness is. Today, able and motivated people graduate and move to wild India or wild Russia to study animals. A century ago, most just didn't have the opportunity to go to school at all. Does that mean that observations of those without a formal training have to be taken with a bit of salt? And what about the observations of those who lived and worked in the jungle for most of their life (hunters and forest officials)? Something else to consider. In less than a century, our planet has changed considerably. Is it possible that animals behaved in a different way when forests were much larger than the pityful remnants we see today? I've read many books published well before World War Two. Books written by experienced people. I was amazed at the stories I read (one could write a book about them). Today's biologists seldom witness extraordinary events. Their job is to learn about large predators. Compared to their peers half a century ago, they are more like managers. They have to if they want to have a bit of effect on the things they see. Many only see destruction. A century ago, those with a training were explorers in an unknown world. Different situation and different results. Even they often were amazed by what they saw. 
I agree with @Dr Panthera that there is a lot of modern scientific knowledge to give us a good idea about the tiger ecology, trough scientific studies. It is amazing how many data is available in scientific literature that is STILL ignored by the thousands of popular books and internet webpages. The true size of the tiger (in the book of Dr Hunter at 2015) and the importance of the male tiger and the sociability of the species (in Wikipedia at 2015 and beyond!) are only a few examples of this problem.
However, I also agree with @Pckts and @Brehmji" that not all is written in the books yet, nor even in the scientific ones. It is amazing how many information is also available via the modern naturalists and photographers that still avoid a proper publication. This is a problem that I have found many times and that is crucial to finish it. Imagine all those real modern stories of the Ranthambore-Kanha-Tadoba-Pench-etc..... tigers that are not published in any book, they MOST be summarize by someone, in order to enrich the knowledge of the tiger. Yes, we most face the fact that the information presented by scientists is quantitative and most of the times statistically reliable, while that information from the naturalist is just qualitative and could present just single glimpses that could represent the "norm" or the "exception". However, it will be good to have all those cases, in chronological order and with pictures (if possible), just for the sake of knowledge. The only exceptional case is that one of the great Valmik Thapar, which is a naturalist, but as far I know, is the man that have passed more time with wild tigers. His qualitative data, from so many years, is already quantitative and is accepted by any scientist, like Dr Sunquist or Dr Karanth. He is the perfect example that if you summarize your glimpses, you can get a real scientific and accurate document that can be used to understand the "real" tiger. Even with all this, there is a phrase that I constantly read in all the books about tigers, and is that even at 2015, we don't know very much about the tiger. We have data about the core and high-density areas, but what about the areas with few tigers, the poorer habitats, those areas are still unexplored. In my over 11 years studying tigers, based in scientific sources, there is only one constant, and is that tigers always surprise me! 
 (11-27-2015, 01:53 AM)Dr Panthera Wrote:(11-21-2015, 05:44 AM)Pckts Wrote: You aren't comparing apples to apples. To generalize one statement compared to another is wrong. There are multiple people who heard it go on all night, to simply say, "nope, never happened" because they didn't go to school is wrong. Exaggerations happen, of course, but there is nothing here that isn't outside of the realm of normal. Tigers have preyed on elephant, absolute fact. Tigers have hunted as pairs or families, fact. So because it was against a Bull you want to say no? Only 3 of the 11 places you listed actually have wild elephant populations. This is similar to your comment on how gaurs constitute a low percentage in the tiger's diet, without ever considering that gaurs are mostly absent, or present in low densities in the areas where most tiger research occurs. All the research and data can be very misleading when taken out of context. |
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