THE TITLE Celtic Tiger for our recent economic boom was quite appropriate because the tiger is an endangered species and future prospects for tigers in their natural habitats are not rosy, writes WILLIAM REVILLE
The tiger ( Panthera tigris) is an apex predator (ie, it effectively has no predator of its own) and an obligatory carnivore (it must eat other animals in order to thrive) that sits at the top of the food chain in its own habitat. Tigers are native to much of eastern and southern Asia. They are big animals, up to 3.3m long and weighing up to 300kg, with powerful jaws and sharp teeth and the ability to pull down animals much larger than themselves using their powerful legs and shoulders.
Tigers have characteristic dark vertical stripe markings over white and reddish-brown fur, markings that serve as camouflage when hunting through dense undergrowth. The striped pattern is also imprinted on the skin, so tigers would retain the striped appearance even if shaved of their fur.
Adult tigers are solitary hunters, each with its own territory. As a top predator and a large animal, each tiger needs a big area to provide it with sufficient food-prey. A female tiger needs a territory of about 20sq km, whereas a male tiger needs a territory of 60-100sq km.
A territory that can support a tiger automatically supports all the other animals and plants that share the range. EO Wilson, the noted American ecologist has written: “Tigers . . . are predestined by their perch at the top of the food web to be big in size and sparse in numbers. They live on such a small portion of life’s available energy as always to skirt the edge of extinction, and they are the first to suffer when the ecosystem around them starts to erode.” Tigers are now under pressure everywhere from human encroachment and from fragmentation of their territories.
The six sub-species of tiger that remain are: Bengal Tiger – found in India and Bangladesh, this is the commonest tiger in the wild, but less than 2,000 remain; Indochinese Tiger – between 1,200 and 1,800 are estimated to remain wild in Cambodia, Laos, Burma, Thailand, Vietnam and China; Malayan Tiger – found only in the Malay peninsula, only about 600 left; Sumatran Tiger – About 500 small tigers native to the island of Sumatra; Siberian Tiger – these are the largest of the tigers, about 500 left; South-China Tiger – probably none left in the wild.
Tigers usually hunt at night. They feed on large- and medium-sized animals. Adult elephants are usually considered to be too large to be attacked. Tigers will occasionally eat vegetation for fibre. Tigers can run very fast, up to 60km per hour, but only in short bursts. They can leap up to 10m. When attacking larger prey, eg water buffalo, they prefer to bite the throat, using their powerful forelimbs to grab the prey and bring it down. Such prey usually die by strangulation. On average only about one in 20 hunts ends in a kill.
Although tigers have killed more humans than any other cat, humans are not a common prey. However, old or wounded tigers can become “man-eaters”. Tigers mate all year round but the female tiger is only receptive for a few days at a time. The gestation period is 16 weeks. Generally a litter of 3-4 cubs is born, each blind and helpless and weighing about 1kg. The father takes no part in rearing the cubs, who remain with the mother. The cub mortality rate is high – about 50 per cent. A wandering male may kill cubs in order to make the mother sexually receptive.
Lions have been mated with tigers in captivity. The offspring of a male lion and a female tiger is called a liger. Laws in certain states in America permit the keeping of large animals as pets. Up to 12,000 tigers are kept as pets in the US, significantly more than the world’s total wild population of tigers.
In a 2004 poll conducted by Animal Planet, the tiger was voted the world's favourite animal – tigers received 21 per cent of the vote, dogs 20 per cent, dolphins 13 per cent, horses 10 per cent, lions 9 per cent, snakes 8 per cent, followed by elephants, chimps, orang-utans and whales. A commentator, animal behaviourist Candy d'Sa said: "We can relate to the tiger, as it is fierce and commanding on the outside, but noble and discerning on the inside".
I will finish with a tiger joke. Question: What is the difference between a car and a golf ball? Answer: Tiger can drive a golf ball 400 yards.
William Reville is associate professor of biochemistry and public awareness of science officer at UCC – understandingscience.ucc.ie