Tiger loose in Knox County, East Tennessee, USA

Photo: Knox County Sheriff's Office. My thanks to the Daily Mail

A tiger is on the loose in Knox County, East Tennessee, USA. They have no idea where it came from. A local zoo has confirmed that their inventory is complete and that none of their Malayan tigers have escaped the facility. The tiger concerned was seen at the Forks of the River Industrial Park on Wednesday night by a police officer, as I understand it.

Location of tiger on the loose:

Since that first sighting there have been multiple reports of sightings of the tiger overnight around John Sevier Highway followed by another sighting at 7 a.m. on Thursday morning near Thornegrove Pike.

The Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency is leading the search for the big cat. That was the state of play on Thursday this week. They've set a trap using chickens as bait in an area where the cat was last seen.

Once they have caught the it they will take it to Tiger Haven a rescue centre for big cats in Kingston, Tennessee.

Comment: it appears that this is not a tiger that has escaped from a bona fide "proper" local zoo and therefore readers have to conclude that it has escaped from a private "zoo". They can be very small. The zoo maybe someone's backyard. There may be just two animals. and the tiger may be "domesticated" and someone's pet! There are many thousands of private zoos in America and there are more tigers in America than there are in the entirety of the rest of the world in the wild. 

For me it is slightly amusing although I don't wish to offend anybody. This is because in the UK there are frequent big cat sightings and it is somewhat of a joke because there are no big cats in the UK. There are no private zoos of the type you get in America and I don't think we've had a tiger escaping any zoo for many many decades. If ever. So if somebody sees a big cat in East Tennessee in a field and they photograph it, we can be sure it is real and it will be great to be able to say that. So many big cat sightings are just fictions, the result of fear and sometimes bad news days for the media.

Domestic cats that look like tigers

There is one particular cat breed which is wholly designed, and which has been bred, to look like a tiger and that breed is the Toyger. This is an amalgamation of the word "toy" and "tiger". Below is a picture of the Toyger. As far as I'm aware, there are no known cat breeds other than the Toyger which are specifically designed to look like the tiger. I expect many people have heard of this breed. It remains relatively rare.

Photo copyright Helmi Flick.

 

I suppose you have to ask the philosophical question as to whether it is foolhardy to try and replicate the tiger in miniaturised form through selective breeding of the domestic cat. From my perspective it is a ridiculous idea but there are many people who would disagree with me. It seems that the policy behind the project is the same the lofty ideal behind the wild cat hybrids: to bring the wild into the living room. The big defect with the Toyger is that they'll walk like tigers because that is dictated by size. And the tiger gait is very much part of the cat.

It is still work in progress many years after beginning. The breeders are even trying to recreate the way the tiger walks. It is far better to adopt a rescue cat and in any case within all domestic cats whether they look like a tiger or not there is a tiger because the behaviour of the domestic cat is a whisker away from that of the wild cat.

The Abandoned Tiger

People who care about the domestic cat, who keep and love a domestic cat do not necessarily care about the tiger. This is not a criticism. You can like cats but the tiger and wild cats generally are different. They are somewhere else - in the wild. We are no longer connected to the wild. In fact we don't want any more wild places. We just want to control the whole planet. Wild places by definition are out of our control.

Good people in Europe and North America who have learnt about the domestic cat and do a good job in caring for their cat through experience and knowledge often know little about the tiger. This beast is out there somewhere, thousands of miles away in wood or forest, slinking around avoiding humans. A lack of knowledge about the tiger leads to a lack of action to protect the tiger. Combine that with a long history of poor and corrupt management in the places where the tiger lives and you have the abandoned tiger. It actually goes beyond that; people are fearful of the tiger. They want rid of it. There is no place for the tiger on the planet in the modern age.

I think it is fair to say that many of the world's experts on tiger conservation see that the tiger cannot and will not survive on this planet in the wild much longer. Communally we have abandoned the tiger to commercial exploitation and to being pushed out of its habitat.

Valmik Taper makes an emotional plea for sanity in a very scientific book on the tiger published in 1999: Riding the Tiger - Tiger conservation in human dominated landscapes. The title tells us the problem. The tiger is now forced to live in human dominated landscapes. There is no longer any room for the tiger except in the far north in the Himalayas in Bhutan perhaps. Even that won't last.

The Bengal tiger is a subspecies of tiger. It is the most numerous by far of the remaining tiger subspecies. It mainly lives in India. Valmik Taper says that 50% of the entire wild  tiger population lives in India. He makes these points which I have summarised because on the internet people want to skim and move on:

• Large areas of forest in the north and west of India have disappeared.  This is the home of the tiger. Island habitats are left. (my comment: will they survive and can the tiger survive in these small areas)
• The problems in conservation of the tiger "mount" he says. In other words they are getting worse and we are not making progress.
• In 1999 there were 23 Tiger Project reserves, total area: 33,000 square kms. Of this total he says that about one third of this area is almost lost and one third has an "uncertain future". The remaining third may be saved.
• Outside the Tiger Project reserves the tiger's habitat is even more precarious.
• There is "endless pressure on habitat, incessant poaching, and...unplanned large scale development..." (such as mining and dams etc.). 
• There is a persistent lack of political will to protect the tiger (my comment: I don't think the politicians of India want to save the tiger because it gets in the way of big business and politicians and big business are great friends).
• Valmik Taper says that the lack of political will is due to a change in the political landscape. Where there was once a single large political party, the Congress Party, there are now 11 different parties that "rule the Tiger States". The federal government has power in 2 of them. You can see the problem. Political will has been "dissipated" he says.
• As to the management of financing the Tiger Project, it is chaotic and tortuous, nothing less. The delivery of funding is far to slow preventing effective management on the ground.
• There is a lack of understanding of wildlife amongst people in authority.
• There are occasions when the authorities have not enforced the Wildlife Protection Act 1972 (Act) allowing mining in the Madhav National Park for instance. 16 square kms were lost. The Act is interpreted on the whims of ministers ignoring the purpose of the Act.
• India is being modernised. It is becoming much more of a consumer society. (my comment: consumerism works against tiger conservation because it inevitably leads to the use and abuse of natural resources for financial profit).
• "Timber mafias", (Valmik Taper's phrase, a great phrase), "rip great scars in the vital corridors that link habitats together". Well said.
• Even traditional ways are criticised by Valmik Taper. And rightly so. Mass tribal hunts that take place annually results in large numbers of tiger prey being killed.

Valmik Taper proposes a number of solutions. I don't feel inclined to discuss them here because I don't think they will be implemented. This is because of the lack of political will that Mr Taper so eloquently writes about. Without the will and coordination of India's leaders, nothing will happen.

Note: The book's ISBN is 0-521-64835-1 Cambridge University Press.

Tiger Foot Size

Tiger foot size: More than 11 centimetres or 4.3 inches is the width of the hind feet of an individual male tiger in Nepal's Royal Chitwan National Park so says Charles McDougall, a scientist working as a Smithsonian Research Associate. A website says that the Sunquists in Wild Cats of the World write that the width of the tiger's front paw varies from between 15 and 17.5 cms (although I could not find this in the book). There has to be considerable variation because Amur (Siberian tigers) are generally larger than Bengal tigers and, of course, individual tigers vary in size.

The image below is approximately to scale - a life sized male tiger paw print - at just under 14 centimetres across - top to bottom in the picture. It is on its side and cropped because it would be far too large for the page if it was presented upright. Female Bengal tiger hind paws in the area he studied were less than 11 cms in width, says Mr McDougall

Tiger Foot Size

Imagine a tiger walking in front of you. I just think it is interesting to get a feel for the actual size of a tiger's foot. Charles McDougall could identify individual adult tigers from pugmarks (foot prints best seen in moist compact sand).

He could do this when the tiger had incurred an injury to the foot. Tiger foot injuries usually affect the forefeet because it is with the forelimbs that tiger fight. When two tigers fought he found that the paw pads of one tiger had become more splayed out. This was particularly so for the right forefoot. Perhaps this tiger was right handed?

Note (tiger foot size) : Inserted photo by Ma Rui. Read more about the tiger.

Another Private Zoo Disaster Waiting to Happen?

May 2012: I wrote about Joe Exotic's private zoo a while ago (see article). I think he has the largest collection of big cats in America. His real name is Joe Schreibvogel. Mr Exotic is your archetypical American big cat obsessive. I am sure at the beginning he had no intention of ending up with nearly 170 big cats and up to 800 (yes 800) other animals in an area that would normally be quite large at 54 acres but must be considered pitifully cramped when you take into consideration the demands for territory of the large wild cat species and other animals. It just gradually happened in the same way a cat hoarder ends up with hundreds of domestic cats.

Having changed his name to "Exotic" it would appear he is also obsessed with the exotic. In my humble opinion what he has created is very far indeed from anything that is remotely exotic. It is sad, unhealthy and dangerous.

Mr Schreibvogel came to my attention in a television documentary program. He was visited by and interviewed by Louis Theroux an English broadcaster who asks telling questions is a very dry and apparently innocent manner. He is able to elicit honest answers to difficult questions. Even though the television program was about seven months ago (Oct 2011) it is still clear in my memory. It clearly had an impact. It was bound to because Mr Schreibvogel's edifice to self-indulgence is so odd.

During interviewing three episodes come to mind. When challenged by Louis about keeping a tiger is a small cage for a long time, Mr Schreibvogel said that what the tiger does not know he won't miss (i.e. the young tiger had never experienced a natural environment). Incidentally, in the wild tigers commonly travel 15-20 kilometers per day and 16-32 kms per night. Let's say they like space, up to 300 square kilometers of it, rather than a 15 foot square cage. I disagree with Mr Exotic because I believe that the desire for a large territory is hard wired into the big cat and inherited. The point is that Mr Schreibvogel simply finds a way to justify what he does whether it is considered cruel or not. Mr Schreibvogel likes his freedom under the famous American constitution but he refuses to give it to a tiger and in doing so he disrespects the tiger. He says that the tiger will be extinct in the wild in 15 years or so. He should know because what he does contributes to that process.

Mr Schreibvogel likes to breed big cat hybrids. He seems to do this without any concern for best breeding practice and inbreeding or preserving genetic purity. As far as I am aware he breeds generic tigers and sells them for profit. Generic tigers are hybrids. There are no conservation benefits to this process. It is just manufacturing tigers for the American commercial marketplace. Does that sound good or acceptable to you?

Mr Schreibvogel also made it clear that under certain unspecified circumstances he would be prepared to kill all the animals under his control. I presume that he meant that if things went wrong he would kill them and perhaps himself. I got the distinct impression that he meant that. He still grieves for this brother who is buried on his land. That is sad but I feel it still affects him emotionally. Is it a contributing factor that makes him unsuitable to keep such a large private zoo?

That is why I have the title: Another Private Zoo Disaster Waiting to Happen? I am  referring to the horrors of October 2011 at the private zoo near Zanesville, Ohio owned by Terry Thompson. As you might recall, he committed suicide and released all his animals. The police shot 48 of them. They said they had to. Everything about these large private zoos are bad for the animals. They live in cages, and then in this case get shot at the end of that misery.  I don't think that the Terry Thompson incident is a freak one-off event because the circumstances under which the events unfolded remain in place. It could happen again and Mr Schreibvogel could the next person to be in the news.

He is certainly under pressure from the authorities and he must always be under financial pressure. Perhaps the unspecified circumstances under which he kills his animals are gradually arriving. Who knows? A recent CBS news story refers to allegations of animal abuse at his private zoo.  Mr Exotic likes to exercise his constitutional rights. If it is legal he has the right to do it, he declares. Yes, agreed. However, the law is frequently an ass and outmoded. Times change. The law follows. The time of the private big cat zoo is over.

All the world's attention should be on how to save the tiger in the wild and to stop pretending it can be done in captivity. If Mr Exotic did something like that he'd get my respect.

Note: If I was the authority dealing with Mr Exotic and wanted to close him down I'd ensure that the animals were protected before taking action.

Escaped Melanistic F1 Savannah in Scotland?

There might be an escaped F1 melanistic Savannah cat roaming around Scotland, near St. Andrews. I'll tell you why it is a possibility.

The local press is talking about a black "big cat" on the loose (see Fife Today). The word "big cat" is used loosely to! Because a father and son were out for a walk near St. Andrews when from a distance of 35 feet (fairly close so the sighting was good) they saw "a big black cat". It was the size of a small Labrador they added.

There is a difference between a "big black cat" and a "black big cat"! Big cats are usually one of the top four biggest wildcats: jaguar, leopard, lion and tiger.

A genuine black big cat is likely to be a melanistic leopard or jaguar (euphemistically called black panthers). These are large animals considerably larger than a normal or large labrador.

Labradors vary in size but at the shoulder a small Labrador might be about 21 inches tall. The world's tallest domestic cat was at one time Magic, an F1 Savannah cat that was 17.1 inches at the shoulder. The male serval, the father of an F1 Savannah cat is considerably bigger but smaller than the leopard or jaguar.

There is at least one Savannah cat breeder in Scotland: Wild Cat Breeder. They don't say where they are on their website. However, servals and Savannah cats are able to escape. Melanism can occur at anytime. It is a genetic mutation that affects the coat and nothing else.

We are not talking about big cats in the conventional sense. Newspapers like to talk things up. But the observations of a large black cat roaming around St. Andrews, if the observations are faithful, might be sightings of a melanistic F1 Savannah cat or perhaps a serval as both these cats are in Scotland, albeit in captivity. They are the correct size based on the best sighting referred to above.

See also Big Cats in the UK.

Tiger parts are as profitable as Apple products

Tiger steak washed down with the best tiger bone wine is definitely on the menu in restaurants throughout China. The raw meat might start its journey in tiger farms in China or perhaps in Bangkok, Thailand. Tigers are treated like livestock in many parts of Asia. Half a ton of tiger meat was recently unearthed in Bangkok with bones (for the wine) all destined I suspect for the major restaurants of Shanghai where clients believe it will improve their virility especially if they eat a $6,000 (USD) tiger penis. Man that really does make you feel superhuman....The bones of the tiger's forelimbs are prized too. It is all completely senseless.

Burma is a major trader and so are Malaysia and Vietnam. The business, built on corrupt officials, pathetic enforcement of CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) and mafia masterminds, is worth billions of bucks. And you know what? As the tiger becomes rarer and rarer as a result of this senseless slaughter, the tiger parts become more and more desirable and expensive and so the profit margins go up. It is self generating. Until it is all over.

In Asia it seems that everyone is abusing the tiger, which is fast becoming extinct in the wild. It is a shame that the tiger's range or distribution is in Asia. That is not a racist remark. It is a simple fact that countries like Burma and China are horribly corrupt and have a disregard for animal welfare.  The illegal trade in tiger parts would not exist but for the corruption of officials. In India the Bengal tiger is often poached from tiger reserves with the assistance of corrupt wardens (I allege this).

For example, some of the so called "private zoos" in Thailand are in fact tiger farms or wildlife farms. Documents are falsified and inspections evaded or officials collude in the illegal trade.

I haven't mentioned traditional Chinese medicine. Did I say "medicine"? I shouldn't because it isn't. It is, though, the single biggest contributor to the extirpation of the tiger on the planet.

What chance does the tiger have in the wild? Pretty much a zero chance of survival. It will all be over in about 20 years and we can then stop bemoaning the tiger's gradual extinction on the planet and move on. We will be left with generic tigers (hybrids or moggie tigers) in farm cages or zoos and that will be that.

A tiger's body is worth £215,000 in China (2008 and going up). Here are some more prices:

Tiger Product	Price $ USD per Kg	Place	Date
Bone	130	Nepal	2002
Bone	130-175	Vietnam	2002
Bone	up to 300	Russia	2002
Bone	140-370	South Korea, Taiwan	2009
Penis Soup	320	Taiwan	2009
Humerus bone	up to 3190	Seoul	2009
Eyes (2)	170	Taiwan	2009

Src: tigersincrisis.com and Sunquists


China is a CITES contracting party.  See also Bengal tiger facts.

Sprayed by Tiger Urine

If you go down to the zoo today be prepared for a big surprise! We know that our domestic cats can spray sometimes. This means marking territory by spraying a horizontal jet of urine against a vertical object behind the cat. Male cats have a "specially retractable penis" that allows them to leave these scent markers at a height that is perfect for other cats to sniff.

It is relative rare that domestic cats spray objects because they are usually neutered or spayed and domesticated and don't really have a home range to protect.

A home range is the area that the cat considers his or her home territory. They can be extremely large for the bigger wildcats such as the snow leopard. When the area is large it is impossible for the cat to physically patrol the area and see off intruders so scent marking is the next best thing. It says to intruders that the occupying cat is here and recently.

Here are some examples of how frequently wild cats spray their territory:

• Male serval - up to 41.2 times per kilometer (46 times per hour).
• Bobcats spray urine from 1.9-7.5 times per km.
• Canada lynx spray more frequently than bobcats at about 10x per km.
• Tigers spray mark territory "up to 11 times every 30 mins.

I found these to be high numbers. I had not realised how frequently wild cats sprayed their territory.

If you are visiting a zoo and looking into the tiger enclosure don't get too close because if you do and see the tiger turning around presenting his rear end towards you, you know what you are about to receive - a large shower of prime quality tiger urine. This has happened and will no doubt happen again.

I have been sprayed with serval urine when I entered a serval cage to photograph them - there were two, one male and one female. The male, a large cat, sprayed me very quickly. I had no chance to get out of the way. The picture below is of the cat who sprayed me.

Morpheus at A1 Savannahs.

You can read about Morpheus on this page. The information on spraying frequencies comes from The Natural History of the Wild Cats by Andrew Kitchener ISBN 0-8014-8498-7.

Striped Coat Keeps Flies Away

You may have read that the zebra's striped coat has developed, scientists think, to keep flies away. There has been much discussion as to why the high contrast zebra stripes had evolved. Tests have discovered that flies dislike striped coats and the narrower the stripes the better. Apparently the stripes reflect light in a way that puts flies off coming near.

zebra and tiger stripes. Photos (top): by andrew lorien
Photo (bottom) by TeryKats

On the basis of this finding, many doors must surely be opened. Human clothes should be striped if you are living in warmer equatorial climates, for instance.

What, though, of the tiger. We all agree that tiger stripes are good camouflage in long grass, forest and under dappled light. But I have doubts about the effectiveness of the camouflage.

The stripes of a tiger are very sharp and high contrast. Most wildcats have a broken pattern that is more in tune with the environment where they live. Their background color is grey brown and the pattern spotted. Their spots are often broken or doughnuts (rosettes).

No wild cat has such a striking striped coat as the tiger. Cats like the ocelot and margay have heavily patterned coats and densely colored patterns but not sharp high contrast stripes.

It just crossed my mind whether the tiger too has developed his high contrast stripes as both camouflage and as a fly repellant? The tiger needs good camouflage less than the other wild cats as it is the top predator so perhaps it lost some its camouflage in a trade off with fly repellant.

See also tiger patterns and tiger stripes.

Declawing Cats In The UK

Although declawing of domestic cats has never been on the agenda in the UK (even before the recent introduction of the Animal Welfare Act 2006), the declawing of wildcats in zoos in the UK seems to have been carried out on occasion.

I am referring to the declawing of lions and tigers at a British big cat sanctuary, Kamo's Zion Wildlife Gardens. This happened some time ago now; sometime, in fact, between 2000 and 2008. The person in charge of the park during that time was Craig Busch. It seems that he was responsible for ordering the declawing operations.

The declawing resulted in two lions being injured because they could not grip on slippery surfaces and in England in the winter there will be a lot of slippery surfaces. These lions had fallen off boxes onto hard surfaced it appears.

Also the declawing operation had left some cats in obvious discomfort - their gait was incorrect putting strain in other parts of their body - and the others, although looking OK, were assessed as being at risk of developing potential problems in the future due to the declawing.

The park was seeking funds to get the well known American vet Dr Jennifer Conrad to do the six hour corrective surgery. Obviously you can't put the claws back on but you can repair damage done during the declaw operation. The repair work should leave the big cats better able to walk and grip properly.

This little story highlights two things: declawing happened in the UK and it causes unforeseen health problems. Craig Busch should be ashamed of himself.

Picture of ginger tabby cat looking anxious in water

In one way I love the face of this cat but I am also worried for this cat. He or she looks very anxious. I don't know how she got into water. Was she put in it? It almost looks way because I don't think she would get in for the fun of it. Some cats don't mind water. Some even like it (Savannah cat breed for example). But the majority of random bred cats don't really like water. This cat is in that bracket. That said, all cats are decent swimmers. Some are excellent (tiger for example). It is a bit of a myth that the Turkish Van likes to go for a swim.

What are the leopard's enemies?

ANSWER: the tiger, lion, human and dogs are probably the main enemies of the leopard. There is a strange relationship between the dog and the leopard. The leopard attacks, kills and eats the domestic dog. It is in danger itself to an attack by a pack of wild dogs, which are capable of killing the much larger tiger. The leopard is frightened of the tiger. Tigers kill leopards as do lions. The human poses the most danger to the leopard. Where the leopard lives near to human settlements it hunts at night to avoid them. Hyenas are also capable of killing leopards but the match is fairly even. All these animals will steal the leopard's prey. In many areas of the leopard's range it coexists with these species.

Bengal Tiger Habitat

The Bengal tiger habitat varies with the area. In North India and Nepal, the habitat is tall grasslands, riverine forests and dry thorn forest.  In West Bengal and Bangladesh the Bengal tiger lives in mangrove swamps. In Bhutan it lives in forests. Over 60% of Bhutan is covered with forests. The amount is declining.

For the record, "habitat" means the area and environment where the tiger lives.

At 2011, the Bengal tiger is found in these countries:

1. India, 
2. Nepal, 
3. Bhutan, 
4. Bangladesh.

In Bhutan it lives on the slopes of the Himalayan Mountains and not in reserves. While in India and Bangladesh it lives in reserves. There are 38 reserves, 32 of which are maped out below. If you click on the flags you may see a photograph of Bengal tiger habitat.


View Bengal Tiger Reserves India in a larger map

See a page on the Bengal tiger reserves of India.

In order to show the Bengal tiger habitat I have selected two reserves and Bhutan. Bhutan is different because the Bengal tiger has retired there to a safe haven at high altitude and the environment there is somewhat different to that of the reserves. One reserve that is also not typical is the Sunderbans (also spelled "Sudarbans). This is an area of sea water mangrove swamps to which the tiger has become adapted.

Sunderbans National Park and Tiger Reserve

As mentioned this park is made up of mangrove swamps. Here are two pictures of a Bengal tiger in the Sunderbans Tiger Reserve swimming across a river or esturary. The pictures are by Nikhil Devasar and courtesy the Sunderbans National Park website.

Bengal in its habitat in Sunderbans National Park - Photo: Nikhil Devasar

Bengal in its habitat in Sunderbans National Park - Photo: Nikhil Devasar

Bhutan

Area in world:

In Bhutan, the Bengal tiger has been photographed at 4,000 feet above sea level. This is the highest at which this subpecies of tiger has been found. What is the habitat like in the area? These pictures show us:

Bhutan Forest - picture: RAO Online

Tiger in Bhutan - still from BBC video.

See also: Tigers of Bhutan for a critique.

Ranthambore National Park

This is one of the major tiger reserves of India and relatively close to the capital, Delhi. This is what the Bengal tiger habitat looks like in the park:

Ranthambore National Park and tiger reserve - Photo by d.e.v.e.s.h

Ranthambore National Park and tiger reserve - Photo by d.e.v.e.s.h

Ranthambore is 1,334 sq km in size. The habitat is described as "dry thorn forests". You can also see grasslands at Ranthambore.

Habitat Selection

Bengal tiger habitat is selected by the tiger on the basis of suitable prey available and its density in any particular place. The tiger needs large prey to survive. Certain habitats support certain prey and in the tiger food chain the tiger prey is both herbivores and carnivores although large herbivores are primary prey. The tiger will eat anything but its main diet is wild pigs and deer of various kinds.

See also Bengal Tiger Habitat, an earlier page.

Roaring Sound of Tigers

Technically tigers don't roar despite the roaring sound of tigers being so well known. The tiger roar differs with respect to certain "critical features"¹ to the roar of the jaguar, leopard and lion. The tiger is therefore not one of the roaring cats. However, the tiger does roar and these four wildcat species are the only ones that do.

Air is expelled through the open mouth while the mouth is progressively closed. People can hear the roaring sound of tigers 3 kilometers away. It is therefore a long range sound telling other tigers of the caller's presence, but also used in other contexts.

A tiger might roar:

• after killing large prey
• before mating
• during mating
• when a female is calling her cubs

The lion, leopard and jaguar employ a roaring sequence. The tiger rarely employs a "regular species-specific structure"¹. Videos of tigers roaring are often not misleading as the tiger is not technically roaring. The video below would seem to be a genuine roar.



Note: (1) Wild Cats of the World ISBN-13: 978-0-226-77999-7

Prusten Sound

The prusten is a sound made by certain wildcats when in close proximity with other cats that is of low intensity and short. It is a snorting call. The wildcats that make this sound are: clouded leopard, tigers, snow leopards and jaguars. The clouded leopard makes similar sounds to the tiger.

The prusten sound lasts less than one second. It is a soft sound a bit like a horse snorting. Air is expelled through the nostrils. The larynx plays a part too. It is used in friendly encounters. It serves a similar function to gurgling and puffing. In the early part of the video below the tiger does a prusten. Note: videos are sometimes removed by YouTube without notice.

Can tigers purr?

No, so says the best source of information¹ on the wildcats. What I mean is that this book¹ does not mention purring as a vocalization made by the tiger. Is this incorrect? These are the sounds the tiger makes:

• main call
• prusten (short range vocalization)
• grunts (short range vocalization)
• growl
• snarl
• moan (subdued roar) - close range vocalization
• meow (this is a domestic cat vocalization, tiger style!)
• spit
• hiss (the spit and hiss are also made by the domestic cat)
• roar (although one expert says that technically tigers don't roar)  - long range call.

As you can see the purr is not included, so by default the tiger can't purr. Perhaps the experts are wrong. There is still a lot about the wildcats that we don't know.

If you can can get close enough to a tiger to touch his throat, you might feel a purr if he is content! In this video, a tiger called "Freedom" (he is caged) moans and purrs when petted. You have to listen carefully.



Associated page: Cat Sounds.

Note: 1. Wild Cats of the World, page 356. ISBN-13: 978-0-226-77999-7

Can a tiger and a lion mate?

The answer is, yes. In captivity people do put tigers and lions together in the same cage and hope that they will mate to produce a hybrid. The hybrid is called a liger. There are other versions of this hybrid. For example a white tiger crossed with a lion and so on.

The liger has hybrid vigor. It is a very large animal. The world's biggest individual cat is a liger called "Hercules". Doc Antle, a showman, cares for him. I don't know if he bred him. He lives in America.

Tiger and lion mated to produce Hercules a liger.

The liger is larger than either the tiger or lion. But the ligers that I have seen are flabby and look odd. And I don't mean that the coat pattern is odd although it is strange.

I mean that the body conformation is odd. I would not be surprised if there are some problems in breeding ligers that we don't hear about. As you can see Hercules is massive and it does not look right to me.

The liger is bred as a spectacle in a zoo. They are created for business purposes. There is no other reason for its creation and I don't like it one bit. It feels wrong to me; an abuse of two beautiful cats that would normally never meet up in the wild as the lion is found on the African continent and the tiger lives in Asia.

Can a tiger kill a crocodile?

Can a tiger kill a crocodile? It depends. And you are not going to find out! A living, adult sized crocodile is not a part of a tiger's diet for obvious reasons. Tigers do like and need to attack and kill large prey but the tiger's primary prey are ungulates - animals with hooves such as the Sambar deer. Tigers need large prey because they need a high food intake to survive.

A tiger might attack a baby crocodile but the best books on the wildcats don't refer to this. The so called video below is a con. It is more likely to be showing a tiger trying to eat a crocodile that was injured or already dead - carrion. I don't think it is photoshop edited.



The person who put the "video" on the internet did a good job because he or she has conned 29 million people!

The big cats attack prey with common sense. They cannot afford to be seriously injured as it would prevent hunting, which would lead to starvation. They therefore focus on prey that they can successful kill with a minimum risk of injury. Crocodiles do not fall into that bracket!

Tiger cubs the same price as domestic kittens!

Generic tiger cubs sell for about $500 to $1000 (USD) in the United States (1). Generic tigers are non-purebred or a hybrid subspecies of tiger.

Purebred domestic kittens of any breed sell for similar amounts. Does this strike you as odd? It can only mean that there is low demand for tigers in the USA and/or there are lots of tigers and not that many buyers.

The reason is probably that individuals who keep tigers as pets decide to breed them and that leads to oversupply. It also probably means that the tigers are more valuable dead for their body parts for Asian medicine. This may encourage the unnecessary killing of tigers in captivity. A major factor in the economics of buying and selling tigers is the cost of maintenance - very high. Do individuals who keep generic tigers have a route into the Asian medicine market? I don't know but I would expect that they do.

The fact that tiger cubs are the same price as purebred kittens is also a measure of the value that we put on the tiger. It is an extremely rare animal. There are about 3,000 in the wild on the planet. So why isn't it worth more?

We genuinely don't care enough about the tiger. For that reason it will become extinct in the wild in due course.

Associated page: Tigers for Sale.

Note:  (1) http://www.tigerhaven.org/

America's Dangerous Pets

Joe Exotic has his private tiger zoo in America. There are 176 tigers. It is one of the largest collections of big cats in the world. There are also ligers (cross between tiger and lion) and hundreds of other animals; 1,400 in all. This is G.W. Exotic Animal Memorial Foundation in Wynnewood, Oklahoma. The business is named after his brother who was tragically killed by a drunk driver.

Joe seems a decent person but looks a bit like a camp cop with long blond hair and eyeliner (he was a cop once). And he had common sense (of a kind) but it all seemed so desperately wrong to me. He was being interviewed by Louis Theroux for the BBC.  Louis also met up with Tim who has a lot of large wild animals including bears and tigers. Tim doesn't trust or respect any person including his wife and he said just that on TV with his wife standing beside him. She pays all the bills for his hobby! He keeps all these dangerous pets in small, muddy cages or enclosures.

Louis constantly questioned them about the morality of keeping animals in small cages that have naturally large territories. Tim had a good answer. He said that the bear has a large range because it has to travel large distances to find prey. Given a chance, the bear would eat human food given to it. Therefore the bear is happy living in a quarter acre enclosure. That theory applies to all wild animals, he implied. Is he correct? Joe had a similar justification. He said that tigers raised in cages knew nothing else. If they never had a large territory they would not miss it. Was he correct?

Tim boxed with a lynx. The lynx is a medium sized wildcat. I am not sure if the cat was declawed. I suspect it was. This was not proper treatment in my view.

Joe was going through difficult times financially. I am not surprised. It must cost a fortune to feed and maintain 1,400 animals. Animal rights activists in the area were causing a reduction in visitors to a road show of tigers and bears he presented in car parks. This caused a loss of revenue. He might have to close his business.

Joe said that if he went broke he would prefer to euthanize all his animals rather than relocate them. This sounds horrible and quite sick. By the way, this would not be euthanasia but plain killing. Was Joe thinking about cashing in? Dead tigers are very valuable in the Asian medicine market. I am thinking of tiger bone (for wine) and tiger penis (value $6,000) etc. Joe is sitting on a fortune in tiger penises alone (1 million bucks).

Despite his financial worries he still breeds tigers, which creates higher overheads. And he has no idea what he is breeding. He has no concern for inbreeding. He breeds lions to tigers to create cross-breeds. Likewise Tim has no concern for purity of stock. He has no idea whether his tigers are Bengal tigers or any other subspecies. The tigers looks overweight and flabby. These are generic tigers. There are no controls over the keeping of these tigers. There is no licensing. It is just do as you please. And it is damaging the tiger in the wild as it possibly encourages the tiger body part trade.

These facilities have no connection with conservation, despite what Joe said. He said that there would be no tigers in the wild in 15 years. That is probably true and he is accelerating the process of extinction in the wild. He said that he wanted to present captive Siberian tigers to the public to remind them of Siberia, the home of the Siberian tiger.

This seems pointless if all the wild tigers are extirpated. He played with a juvenile tiger too hard and got himself bitten! This shows a lack of empathy with the cat. It really is self-indulgent, pseudo-macho behavior. These people like animals and become a sort of big cat hoarder. It is a version of cat hoarding on steroids.

I found the whole thing unnerving and depressing.