Comments on: Death of Two Tigers: The Other Agendas?

By: Martin WIlliams

Martin WIlliams — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 02:37:32 +0000

I, too, can’t see Craig Packer’s rationale for saying similarities between tigers superficial; you might even add another tiger head or two, showing how tiger markings can vary – surely even a child playing, or trying to play, spot the difference would find strong similarities between two images you posted.

I think you could have made more of snaring method, which I was told of during recent trip to Sundarbans – snaring a tiger, likely at night, and coming back hours later, seems horrendous. No one can expect it to just sit quietly to wait for darting; cases of animals chewing off a leg caught in a snare are known, and a tiger surely doesn’t have temperament for being caught like this.
I’ve seen a snared panda – thought it had been snared (was told it was just sick, but really it had been caught in wire snare set for deer); after I’d seen snared smaller mammals in market in s China. The panda was in a nature reserve; had been taken to breeding centre; it was the only panda there that looked very angry, and wanting to attack me if it could. I later learned it died within around 3 months, even though staff tried to help it.

Indeed odd if Adam Barlow supposedly researching problem tigers in eastern Sundarbans, where there are no or few such tigers! Snaring and injuring them might, tho, help create problems…

By: Suhas Kumar

Suhas Kumar — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 13:22:05 +0000

Some more scenarios:

The points raised by Mr. Hossain cannot be dismissed. He has made very cogent and logical arguments to put forth his theories. The scientific community needs to come out of its cocooned mindset and revisit their immobilization data, postmortem reports etc. and try to find out how good is radio-collaring for conservation of critically endangered species.
I would like to add some other scenarios too-
Another serious problem occurring in case of radio-collared female might be the premature culmination of mating. As we all know that during the course of mating the tiger after mounting the female takes a neck bite – now when the tiger mates with radio-collared female two things might happen – i. the tiger while taking this neck bite actually bite the collar instead of the neck and annoyed with the foreign object in its mouth aborts mating without culminating the act– if this is happening it has serious consequence as without new recruits any population cannot continue. ii. In the process of the neck bite the tiger pulls the collar with brutal force that may snap or injure the neck of the tigress. Both these eventualities are possible; therefore, there is a need to subject all dead bodies of collared female tigers to thorough forensic examination.
Apart from the above one more serious issue is about injuries and eventual infection of the neck. Collars are heavy, every time the neck moves the skin gets a wearing down. Injuries in the neck cannot be licked and cleaned by the tiger as its is beyond the reach of tongue or fore paws. Even a very tiny part of exposed skin may soon become infested with maggots and then secondary infection by bacteria, fungus and other microorganisms leading to premature death.

By: ugk

ugk — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 21:58:35 +0000

Craig Packer i disagree with you. I have looked at the photos very carefully and they both show the same animal. The shape of certain stripes/spots appear slightly different due to the angles of both photos of the animals head. But the spots/stripes appear in EXACTLY the same places on the face.
As for the animals dying. I dont trust anything the mainstream media seems to support these days. There is always a hidden agenda behind their behaviour and it isnt restricted to wildlife only.

By: jay mazoomdaar

jay mazoomdaar — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 19:56:10 +0000

Don’t know how Craig Packer could claim the animals in the photographs as “clearly two different tigers”… the similarities are NOT superficial… they are the same animal. Very interesting points, Sirajul. Would love read the first article and the responses. Can you pls mail me the lot?

By: Craig Packer

Craig Packer — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 12:48:40 +0000

The animals in the photographs are clearly two different tigers – the markings have only superficial similarities.
As for the discussion about tiger mortality, if these animals had been poisoned in retaliation for stock raiding or any other reason, there would have been no incentive to harvest body parts — just a desire to eradicate a problem animal.
Thus to follow your own suggestion, the priority should be to determine the precise cause of death in these cases — it is easy to blame the immobilization procedures since it is so easy to locate the carcass of a collared animal. But were any attempts made to test for poison? Poisoning has become extremely common in Africa in the past 10 yrs, killing many lions and hyenas.
Telazol does have a reputation for causing secondary immobility some time during the first few days after the initial darting, so it might be implicated in a few of these cases, but the large number of mortalities are far more likely to reflect other causes of death. Wildlife managers would have an obvious motivation to “blame the messenger” (i.e., a researcher who reports a death that would have otherwise gone unrecorded) rather than accept responsibility for adequately conserving the tigers.
Be careful not to promote a culture of secrecy for tiger conservation — it is essential to encourage continued monitoring, but require that scientists use the safest possible techniques so as to eliminate the darting itself as a potential cause of mortality. Efforts can then be focused on the true cause of the conservation problem!

By: Farhad Mahmud

Farhad Mahmud — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 10:39:05 +0000

I am follwoing the debate carfully. I appreciate Mr. Siraj and others view. Research on such a near-extinct animal should be more carful. Not only uses of contraindicated drugs, but the way ot trapping the tiger is sldo debatable. In this way every tiger will be injured, which contacted to the trap. As earlier reports say, more than one tiger escaped the trap with injury. And death of two tiger is not a matter of joke.
I prefer to run an international investigation by real tiger experts. Before their opinion, present research should not be carried on.