Mammals on Monday 14 - Tiger

During my recent trip to India, I was lucky enough to see five different tigers in a single day during a to slightly longer visit to Ranthambore National Park.  The group I was in saw two large cubs in the morning, two females, a male and same two cubs in the afternoon.

It was an utterly remarkable experience.  The morning sightings were distant and generally through trees, but the afternoon brought very close sightings.  At their closest two or three of the tigers were less than 10m from the open topped vehicles we were in.  People have asked if I found it frightening to have an apex predator that close, with nothing between us and it but thin air.  I can honestly say that I was uttering unbothered by this proximity - which may say a great deal about my understanding of risk - as the tigers seemed totally relaxed and unconcerned by our presence. 

And the more I think about that day, the more I come to understand that it really was an 'out of the box' day that is extremely unlikely ever to occur again. 

Ranthambore National Park covers an area of 1,334 square kilometres in the state of Rajasthan.  The national park is about 400km south of Delhi and was declared a National Park in 1980.  It's probably one of the most famous places to see tigers in the wild.  There are approximately 70 tigers in the National Park.

The tiger in India is classified as Panthera tigris tigris, a species which is now thought to include all tigers except those that occur on in Borneo, Java, Sulawesi and Sumatra. 

In the past the tiger ranged across eastern Turkey, northern Iran and Afghanistan to Central Asia and from northern Pakistan through the Indian subcontinent and Indochina to southeastern Siberia, Sumatra, Java and Bali. As of 2022, it inhabits less than 7% of its former range and now has a fragmented distribution in the Indian subcontinent, the Indochinese Peninsula, Sumatra, northeastern China and the Russian Far East. 

Approximatley 75% of the world's wild tiger population is found in India, with an almost 3,700 tigers being identified in 2022. The India tiger population has more than doubled since 2006, largely due to protected area management, anti-poaching efforts, and community cooperation.

Tigers have a typical body length of between 1.4–2.8 m with an additional  0.6–1.1 m of tail! They stand 0.8–1.1 m high at the shoulder. The tigers found in Siberian are some of the largest known, and this may be an adaptation to the cold environment in which they occur. Male tigers in India weigh between 200–260 kg, with females weighing somewhat less.

They are an utterly remarkable animal, and it was a privilege to watch them. 

Hope all is well.  SM