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Tigers Anonymous asked this question on 5/25/2002: Please do not send me a list of websites, please send me answers to my questions. 1. How have tigers changed over the past century, meaning their habitat and lifestyle? 2. How and when do tigers mate? 3. Are there any ancient myths about tigers? 4. What are some interesting statistics about tigers? 5. Have tigers ever hurt a human? 6. What can we do to save tigers?

beainsc gave this response on 5/25/2002: Habitat and Distribution A. Distribution 1. Tigers once ranged from eastern Turkey through southern Asia and the islands of Sumatra, Java, and Bali, to the eastern shores of Asia on the Sea of Okotsk. 2. Today tigers are no longer found west of India or on the islands of Java and Bali. The remaining populations in southeast Asia, China, and the Russian Far East are mostly isolated in fragmented habitats, and greatly reduced in number. a. Bengal tigers are found in India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Western Burma, and possibly southeastern Tibet and Yunnan. b. Siberian tigers are found in the Russian Far East, China, and North Korea. c. Sumatran tigers are found only in Sumatra. d. Indo-Chinese tigers range from Eastern Burma to Vietnam and Malaysia. e. South China tigers are in Central and South China. B. Habitat 1. Depending on geographic location, tigers can be found in a variety of habitats. These include tropical forests, evergreen forests, riverine woodlands, mangrove swamps, grasslands, savannas, and rocky country. 2. Tigers rely on concealment for stalking and ambushing prey. They seek areas with ample food, water, and moderately dense cover. C. Migration 1. Tigers travel throughout the year in individual home ranges. 2. Tiger home range sizes differ depending on habitat quality, prey availability, the tiger's sex, and the season. a. In India, where prey densities are relatively high, home ranges vary from 50 to 1,000 square km (19-386 square mi.). b. In Manchuria and southeastern Siberia, where prey are more widely dispersed, home ranges vary from 500 to 4,000 square km (193-1,544 square mi.). c. Because tigers are polygynous (males have more than one female mate at one time), male tigers generally have larger home ranges than females. A study in Nepal showed that males have home ranges of 19 to 151 square km (7-58 square mi.), while females have home ranges of 10 to 51 square km (4-20 square mi.). d. Home range sizes may also vary seasonally. Female tigers in Nepal studies, have larger ranges in the hot season and smaller ranges in the wet season. Females also had smaller home ranges when caring for young cubs. (6) e. Since tigers do not migrate, where prey is migratory or widely dispersed, like in the Russian Far East, females tend to have overlapping ranges. 3. Some tigers establish exclusive home ranges, or territories. a. The home ranges of male tigers are intrasexual territories. Male tigers exclude other males from their range, but not females. A male's home range usually overlaps the home range(s) of one to several females. b. Female tigers may or may not establish territories. (1) Females living in areas with a seasonally stable prey population, like the Royal Chitwan National Park in Nepal, usually establish territories. (2) In Kanha Park, India, female tigers studied in the 1960s had overlapping home ranges. By the 1970s, habitat quality and prey availability had improved, and females were reported establishing non-overlapping home ranges. 4. Female and male tigers mark their home ranges chemically (through scent) and visually. Most marking is done along home range boundaries. a. The most common form of scent marking is through urine. A chemically modified urine called marking fluid, which has a strong, long-lasting smell, is sprayed on trees, bushes, and rocks. b. Scraping (abrading the ground with the hindfeet) is a common visual marker, placed in conspicuous areas along pathways. Scraping is often accompanied by deposits of feces or urine. c. Less common methods of marking include tree trunk clawing, cheek rubbing, and flattening of vegetation (through rolling) next to trails. 5. Daily movement within the home range varies. Individuals will visit all parts of their range over a period of days or weeks. Siberian tigers have been recorded moving up to 60 km (37 mi.) per day, while Bengal tigers in Nepal covered about 10 to 20 km (6-12 mi.) per day. 6. Adult female tigers (tigresses) tend to occupy the same home range for their entire lifetime, while males may shift or change their home range several times. Vacant home ranges in prime habitat are quickly filled by animals living in peripheral habitats, usually young adults. D. Population 1. In the 1920s, about 100,000 tigers existed in the wild. 2. As of 1993, the total number of tigers in the wild is estimated to be 4,730 to 6,700. Of this total, Bengal tigers number 3,000 to 4,000; Siberians, 300 to 500; Sumatrans, 400 to 600; Indo-Chinese, 1,000 to 1,500; and South Chinas, 30 to 50. Tigers in Trouble ================= There are five different kinds or subspecies of tiger alive in the world today. These tigers are called Siberian, South China, Indochinese, Bengal, and Sumatran. Their Latin name is Panthera tigris. Tigers are an endangered species; only about 5,000 to 7,400 tigers are left in the wild. Three tiger subspecies, the Bali, Javan, and Caspian tigers have become extinct in the past 70 years. Poachers are continuing to exterminate the world's remaining Tigers. New demand across Southeast Asia for the skins, teeth and claws of tigers is endangering much of the great cats, particularly the Sumatran tiger. Currently, the demand for Tiger parts is centered in several parts of Asia where there is a strong market for traditional medicines made from items like tiger bone and body parts. Volumes are sizeable and there has been little enforcement action against poachers and traders. Tiger Skin For Sale There were nearly 100,000 wild tigers at the beginning of the 20th century-Only 5,000 Tigers currently exist in the wild on the planet Earth. Leopards are suffering the same carnage as well. This information is from The Traffic Report of the World Wildlife Fund. ``This new trend threatens to undermine the progress made in curtailing the use of tiger bone in Chinese medicines,'' said Stuart Chapman, head of the WWF's Wildlife Trade Program The poachers have a huge demand for Tiger parts from major illegal supplying markets that still operate openly in Southeast Asian countries such as Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam from Indonesia. Even though it is illegal to kill a tiger, wild tigers are still being poached today because their bones, whiskers and other body parts can be sold on the black market for a lot of money. Tiger parts are used in traditional Chinese medicine because some people believe that tiger parts have special powers. Forestry and wildlife departments are too understaffed and under budgeted to be effective against the onslaught of poachers. Also accelerating this extermination is the loss of habitat. Across all of Asia, once vast forests have fallen for timber or conversion to agriculture. Only small islands of forest surrounded by a growing and relatively poor human population are left. As forest space is reduced, the number of animals left in the forest is also reduced, and tigers cannot find the prey they need to survive. As human populations move farther into the forest, groups of tigers become separated from each other by villages and farms. This means that tigers in one area can no longer mate with tigers in nearby areas. Instead, tigers must breed repeatedly with the same small group of animals. Over time, this inbreeding weakens the gene pool, and tigers are born with birth defects and mutations. A U.N. team of wildlife experts said on 12April2000 that India's tiger population could be all but wiped out unless drastic steps were taken to tackle poachers and wipe out the illegal trade in tiger skins and bones. The team's report said India was failing to protect its tigers through inefficiency and indifference, allowing well-organized poaching gangs to hunt down the majestic animals. The U.N. Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) last year ordered an investigation into the tiger trade and focused on India as well as Japan and China, traditionally the largest markets for tiger products.The CITES team said officials in some of India's state governments routinely concealed the number of tigers being killed and inflated the figures of remaining populations. HUNTING, MATING & TERRITORY: ============================ Hunting: Tigers are at the top of the food chain: they eat just about anything, but nothing eats the tiger. Hunting primarily by sight and sound, they have been known to eat crocodiles, fish, birds, reptiles, and even other predators like leopards and bears. However, the preferred food, without which tiger populations cannot remain healthy, are ungulates - hoofed animals such as deer and wild pigs. Prey are killed by a bite to the neck or by a strangulating throat hold. If the tiger's prey is too big to eat at once, it will be covered with dirt, leaves and grasses until the next meal. The biggest ungulates, such as gaur (a kind of wild cattle) and water buffalo, provide so much food that the tiger won't hunt again for a week. More than 80 pounds of meat may be eaten at one sitting. Hunting can be very difficult, however, and tigers are only successful in one or two attacks out of every twenty. Mating: Tigers are usually solitary and come together only to mate (although small groups of probably related adults will associate on occasion). Mating can occur at any time, but usually happens between November and April. Gestation lasts about three and a half months. Two or three cubs are normally born, and sometimes more, inside a den made from thick vegetation, a cave, or a rocky crevice. They nurse for three to six months, although they may begin eating meat as early as two month old and can hunt by about one year of age. Cubs will stay with their mother for about two years. Life is dangerous for a tiger cub; only about one-half survive to their third year. The relatively short period between litters (about two to two and a half years), combined with the relatively large litter sizes, allows tiger populations to rebound surprisingly quickly for such large carnivores, given their basic food and habitat requirements. Territory: Male tigers have a large territory, the size of which varies depending on how much vegetation, water, and prey are available. In Russia, territories may be as large as 385 square miles, while a male tiger in the Indian subcontinent may occupy 40 square miles or less. Females have smaller, mutually exclusive ranges contained within a male's range. All tigers mark their territories with urine, feces, and scratching on tree trunks. Facts and Statistics included in first part, but here some further Facts =========== The tiger (panthera tigris), largest of all cats, is one of the biggest and most fearsome predators in the world. A typical male Siberian tiger may weigh 500 pounds and measure more than three yards from nose to tip of the tail. They can travel large distances and bound up to 30 feet in one leap. Powerfully built with fierce retractile claws (they can be pulled into the paw, like a house cat's), the tiger's distinctive gold coloring with black stripes allows it to melt unseen into its environment. The coloring actually ranges from reddish yellow to reddish brown, and both white and "black" tigers have been known to occur in the wild. Most white tigers seen today have been bred in captivity for this characteristic; "black" tigers are examples of a strange color pattern in which the stripes merge into a few, very broad, strips. Tigers are believed to have evolved over 1 million years ago in what is now South China. From there the tiger eventually spread north to the Amur region of far eastern Russia, south to the islands of Indonesia, and southwest to Indochina and the Indian subcontinent, eastern Turkey, and the Caspian Sea. Wherever tigers lived, they commanded deep respect and awe from their human neighbors. This century has already seen major losses of wild tigers. By the 1950s, tigers living around the Caspian Sea were extinct. Populations of tigers that once inhabited the islands of Bali and Java are now extinct. The last Bali tiger was killed in 1937; the last Javan tiger sighting occured in 1972. India today has the largest number of tigers, with between 3,030 and 4,735. The South China tiger, with at best 20 to 30 individuals, is nearly extinct in the wild. Threatened Tigers: It is estimated that only 5,100 to 7,500 individual tigers now remain in the entire world. These remaining tigers are threatened by many factors, including growing human populations, loss of habitat, illegal hunting of the tiger and the species they hunt, and expanded trade in tiger parts for traditional medicines. WWF and many other organizations are now working to combat these threats and save the tiger. 1998 was the Chinese "Year of the Tiger," and WWF used this opportunity to bring East and West together in the cause of tiger conservation. Together, we can ensure that we leave our children a planet where tigers still roam wild. TIGER MYTHS =========== Every place has something they believe in. They are often called a myth or legend. To a majority of ethnic groups they are in believe of a god and myths on animals. In this case for China they have a big thing for animals like tiger, dragons, serpents, snakes, ect. They each have a myth or legend on the animal. It is a story of respecting the animal and showing that an animal is useful. Now about tigers. To china they are respected. Like in Chinese mythology there is a story called "The tale of the trusty tiger" which I fond interesting. The tiger is well respected after saving a man that was trapped in a ditch. The man respected the tiger by every year feeding the tiger a fresh pig. There is another tale called "Tiger boys" which I fond interesting. It is another myth on boys going to the woods turning in to tigers. There is other tales that you can check out. Myths and Legends of Ancient Korea: The tiger in the Legend of Tangun, unable to endure the trial in the cave and acheive humanity, represents the untamed forces of nature. The Legend: No matter what the culture or language, the tiger is regarded as the undisputed ruler of its domain and it has had a profound influence on village life in Asia over the centuries. In popular belief the tiger is the oldest inhabitant of the jungle, living there long before humans came. People working in their gardens or in the forest do not dare to call the big cat by its common names. Instead they use respectful titles like 'grandfather/grandmother in-the forest,' 'old man of the forest,' 'general' or 'king of the forest.' The tiger is variously feared, respected, admired and distrusted depending on the context. The popular beliefs swing between its power to help or harm, save or destroy; although, in Sumatra at least the final analysis is that the tiger is thought of as a good and just animal and a friend rather than a foe, who can be called on in times of illness or difficulty. Stories also tell of mythical times when a deal was struck between humans and tigers such that they would respect each other's territory - the tiger's forest, the people's village. In some parts of Sumatra there is a yearly ritual in which this bond between tiger and humans is reaffirmed. Offerings of flowers and rice are presented in the houses, while outside the offerings are of raw meat and the blood of a water buffalo slaughtered for the occasion. It is thought that if the tiger does not get its yearly respect, it will leave the forest and disturb the village. A tiger or its pawprints suddenly seen on the perimeter means that something in the village is wrong - someone has broken the rules. It may be anything from adultery to a failure to obey the village elders, or that the elders themselves have failed to perform certain tasks. The suspect is fined (in rice or chickens or goats depending on the severity of the crime) and the village chief will bring meat to the forest to inform the tiger that the fault has been corrected. Equally though, if a tiger kills, it has gone too far and retribution must be extracted. The tiger is hunted and killed, although this is done with respect, followed by ceremonial burial. A number of researchers see the myths as inspired by respect, fear and common sense - common sense because tigers seldom attack humans. If they are left alone the village will be safe. Village youth today holds the same respect for these animals as their parents, so tiger myths are considered a living tradition. However, a change in attitude can occur when sons leave the village to join the army or the police force, etc. These ideas are eroded when away from the home influence, and the compunction about indiscriminate killing of tigers is lost. Thus the planned government education programs about conservation are being aimed at all sections of the community throughout Indonesia. It is hoped that the message will reach other parts of Asia as well. Tiger attacks on Humans: ======================= Yes, Tigers have attacked humans. Here are some examples: Tiger Attacks in Bangladesh Tigers killed five woodcutters and attacked more than a dozen others in the first week of July in the Sundarbans mangrove forests, according to a Reuters report quoting the forest service. The report in the Lausanne newspaper 24 HEURES of 11 July said that about 50 people had been killed by tigers between January and May this year. It also said that a 1982 law banning hunting of tigers and other endangered species had not been respected. The report claimed that the growth of poaching had made the tigers "too aggressive". Ram Lakhan Singh, Director of Project Tiger, India, says that 24 people were killed by tigers in the Indian Sundarbans in 1987, but only 11 in 1988. Various measures have been taken in the Indian Sundarbans to minimize the toll from tiger attacks, which have been endemic for centuries. One of the most successful appears to be the recent introduction of face masks worn on the back of the head by forest workers to deter tigers, who usually attack from the rear. Tiger Attacks Around Chitwan National Park Sixteen people have been killed and at least partly eaten by tigers in and around the Royal Chitwan National Park in Nepal since October 1980, reports Charles MacDougal. The last occurrence was in May 1988. This year's grass cutting season passed off without deaths although there was one, not too serious mauling. Large numbers of people enter the park each year to collect thatch grass and are then vulnerable to tigers, with several people killed in past years. In 1988 a woman was carried off by a tiger when cutting grass on 26 April, and on 16 May a man was killed in the grassland. His companions heard him scream but did not see the tiger although it was only 10-15 metres away. McDougal says these incidents took place in the same area as one on 17 July 1987 and it is thought that a tigress is involved, although there is no proof. Many more have of course been reported and are known about, but I believe the above examples answer you respective question. • beainsc recommends buying a book with the title, author, or subject: Beyond the Tiger : Portraits of Asian Wildlife

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