Conservation

Tiger, Tiger, Burning Bright?

by | July 1, 2005

© AB ApanaMore than any other animal the tiger stands out as the defining symbol of wildlife in the Indian sub-continent. As commonly known, the tiger once thrived all over India, but what is not known is that with the ascendancy of the British Raj, the tiger was considered to be vermin, and the slaughter that ensued only came to an—official—end in 1972. At the turn of the 19th century it was estimated that almost 40,000 tigers were present in India; the optimistic figure today stands between 2,000 to 2,500.

A tiger in the wild is an unforgettable sight. This enormous orange creature, the largest cat in the world, seems out of place in the drab Indian jungle, but the colour and the stripes help the tiger to merge perfectly with its environment. To this add the tiger’s great padded feet and a superb predator emerges, one that can strike unseen and unheard. The tiger is a powerful animal; a grown male may stand 3 3/4 feet at the shoulder and weigh up to 570 pounds. Tigers are solitary except when breeding and each has a distinct territory which is jealously guarded, though a male may have several females sharing his territory. Tigers patrol their territory and leave calling cards, by marking trees, by scent-marking with urine, and by depositing scat to warn strangers to stay away. Though largely nocturnal, tigers in many parks today are used to tourists in vehicles and are diurnal.

Tigress in field © AB Apana

This tigress was completely relaxed in the presence of tourists. Will such experiences soon be a thing of the past?

Tigers take a wide variety of prey, including langurs, boar, porcupine, and peafowl, but their main diet is made up of the sambar (Cervus unicolor) and the chital (Axis axis). Tigers stalk their prey and then launch a short charge, which, if successful, takes the tiger to within range of its prey, which it then pulls down with its forepaws and strangulates by crushing the windpipe with a bite to the throat. The tiger will then carry its kill to cover where it can feed undisturbed by scavengers such as vultures and jackals. This may be fifty metres away or longer. A tiger can carry a full-grown sambar (500 – 700 lbs) in its mouth and clear a six-foot wall with a single jump! If suspicious of being followed, a tiger may sling the kill over its back in order not to leave a drag mark on the ground.

The tiger is a clean eater, removing the entrails of the kill to some distance away before biting off the tail and beginning to feed. A tiger will eat well (up to 75 lbs of meat) before concealing the carcass and going to water to drink deeply before returning to the vicinity of the kill on which it will feed again. In general tigers must kill at least once a week, but not every hunt is successful, for a herd of chital has hundreds of eyes and ears. Still further, chital often feed below Hanuman langurs (Semnopithecus entellus). The langur are careless eaters and drop fruit, flowers, and leaves from the canopy and these are eaten by the chital. Langurs have a vantage position in the canopy and on spotting a predator will bark their ‘krek, krek’ alarm call, thus alerting the chital who add their ‘ow! ow!’ alarm call, one of the ubiquitous sounds of the Indian jungle.

Tiger and deers © AB Apana

Tigers are not wanton killers. Here the deer know that this tiger has killed and eaten (note the large belly) and are thus not unduly alarmed.

Tigers mate mostly during cool weather and this is the best time to hear their deep and haunting ‘aaungh, aaungh’ calls as they advertise their presence in search of a mate. After a gestation period of a little over three months, a litter of between one to seven cubs is born. Mortality is high and a cub stands only a 50% chance of reaching the age of 24 months when it should be able to kill for itself. The cubs have many enemies and a tigress with young cubs is rightly feared for she will attack without hesitation and will press home her attack. The cubs are not threatened by their sire, which often spends time with his family, but should a new male take over the territory, he will not hesitate to kill any cubs he locates in order to mate with the tigress and produce a new generation of his own cubs.

After the cubs reach 24 months, even their sire will not tolerate them, for they are now sexually mature and they must find their own territory. Females may find territory fairly easily, often sharing their mother’s territory, but males must find their own territory. At this age they are unlikely to win territory from any resident male and thus they must move to the periphery of the park or protected area and HERE lies the threat to tigers in the wild.

Parks are understaffed and protection is not fully extended to the boundaries thus leaving tigers quite literally living on the edge, open to poaching. This is compounded by the fact that human pressure means that the area of the park cannot be extended to accommodate growing tiger numbers resulting from more effective protection within the park. Additionally, tigers on the periphery of parks are susceptible to traps and snares laid by villagers for deer and wild pig. Still further, because of low prey densities on the edge of a park, a tiger may take to killing village livestock, thus earning the ire of villagers who may set out to poison the tiger.

Tiger © AB Apana

B1, one of Bandhavgarh’s large males was electrocuted in 2004 by a live-wire trap laid by villagers for deer and wild pig.

Today there is no significant market for tiger skins, but tiger bone is in great demand all over South-East Asia for use in traditional Chinese medicine. An enormous haul of tiger bones was seized in China in 2003 and to ‘make-up’ for this seizure the poaching of tigers in India has greatly increased since 2004. At the time of writing, Bandhavgarh (perhaps the best place to see and photograph tigers) has lost over ten tigers, as has Ranthambore, whereas there are no signs of tigers in Sariska, once a park famous for its tigers. All of the above coupled with a lack of political will to save the tiger makes one wonder how long the tiger will continue to roam the Indian jungle. Our grandchildren may have to be told that Blake was in fact writing about a now-extinct predator which no longer burns bright.

Conservation Links

Recommended Reading

The Way of the Tiger A Tiger's Tale
Karanth, K. Ullas, The Way of the Tiger, Stillwater, MN: Voyageur Press, 2001 Anup & Manoj Shah, A Tiger’s Tale: The Indian Tiger’s Struggle for Survival in the Wild, Kingston-upon-Thames: Fountain Press, 1996 (a fine photographic record of wild tigers)

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