Bengal Tiger

Physical Description

Tigers were once widespread throughout the Asian continent. Over the last 70 years, however, three tiger subspecies, the Caspian Tiger, the Javan Tiger, and the Bali Tiger, have been driven to extinction. Now only five subspecies of tigers remain, and all of these are endangered.

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The five remaining sub-species are the Sumatran Tiger, the Siberian Tiger, the Indo-Chinese Tiger, the South China Tiger, and the Bengal Tiger, also known as the Indian Tiger. The South China Tiger previously ranged as far west as East Tibet, but, today, the only tiger sub-species found in Tibet is the Bengal Tiger.

Tigers are the largest members of the cat family. Most Bengal tigers have a reddish orange to pale yellow coat covered with thick black to dark

grey vertical stripes. A few Bengal tigers instead have a black coat with tan stripes, a white coat with dark red or brown stripes, or a white coat

with no stripes. No two tigers have the same stripe pattern – a single stripe pattern is as unique to a particular tiger as a person’s fingerprints are

to that person. Stripe patterns often even differ between the two sides of an individual tiger’s body. A tiger’s stripes make the tiger’s silhouette

less prominent in dense vegetation that may include long grass. The undersides of tigers are whitish. Tigers also have white spots on the backs of their ears that may enable them to spot each other in the forest at night. The Tiger’s fur is short and thick.

Tigers have large canine teeth and strong, powerful jaws. Their eyesight is excellent and their hearing is good. The tigers’ five-toed paws are heavily padded. The tigers’ claws are retractable, which helps to keep them sharp. Tigers have long, stiff whiskers. Male Bengal tigers measure an average of 2.9 metres (9.5 feet) from head-to-tail and weigh about 220 kilograms (480 pounds). Females measure an average of 2.5 metres (8 feet) in length and weigh about 140 kilograms (300 pounds). Bengal tigers may be as tall as 1.1 metres (3.5 feet) at the shoulder.

Habitat

The Bengal Tiger inhabits grassland, mangrove swamps, and a wide variety of forest types, including the cold, high-altitude, coniferous forests of the eastern Himalaya Mountains. Most Bengal tigers are found in India, but there are also Bengal tigers in Nepal, Bangladesh, Burma (Myanmar), South and Southeast Tibet, and Northwest Yunnan Province in China. The areas of South and Southeastern Tibet where the Bengal Tiger occurs include the Yarlung Tsangpo River valley and the Namcha Barwa region. Tigers require adequate cover, access to a sufficiently sized population of large prey, and a constant water supply.

Eating Habits

Tigers are carnivorous. The Bengal Tiger’s diet consists primarily of prey weighing over 45 kilograms (100 pounds). The Tiger prefers to hunt.

wild deer, wild pigs, wild cattle, young buffalo, young elephants, and young rhinos. However, the prey available varies across the Bengal Tiger’s habitat range, and the Tiger may also include fowl, fish, lizards, frogs, crocodiles, and carrion in its diet. In Tibet, the Bengal Tiger’s natural prey includes takins, muntjacs or barking deer, and red gorals. Tigers rarely attack humans or cattle – those that do are most often young, old, or injured tigers trapped within an over-crowded territory.

Tigers use the element of surprise to advantage when hunting. Tigers approach their prey stealthily, under the cover of dense vegetation, and once in position, wait for an opportune moment to pounce. Tigers are patient, often spending as long as twenty to thirty minutes stalking their prey. Tigers kill prey weighing less than half of their weight with a bite to the nape of the prey’s neck, and larger prey with a bite to the prey’s throat. Only about one out of every 20 tiger hunts is successful. Tigers usually kill one to two large animals per week. Leftovers are buried and finished over the next few days.

Behaviour and Reproduction

Tigers are primarily nocturnal. Unlike most other cats, tigers are fond of water and are strong swimmers. Tigers can climb trees too, and they can jump as high as 9 metres (30 feet). Tigers are usually solitary, except for mothers accompanied with their cubs, but every now and then they hunt in packs or gather to share a kill. Tigers regularly travel as far as 10 to 19 kilometres (6 to 12 miles) in a day. Tigers use scent-marking and scratch trees to delineate their territory. A female Bengal tiger’s range size may measure between 10 and 39 square kilometres (3.9 to 15 square miles). Males occupy larger ranges, measuring from 30 to 105 square kilometres (11.7 to 40.5 square miles), that may overlap the ranges of several females.

Tigers reach maturity at two to three years of age. Mature female tigers only breed every two to two-and-a-half years. Tigers do not have a breeding season, per se, but most Bengal tiger females become pregnant after the monsoon rains. Since the gestation period of tigers is about 104 days, this results in most births taking place between February and May. Litters consist of one to four cubs, or occasionally as many as seven cubs, but most of the time only about two cubs per litter survive to adulthood.

Newborn cubs weigh between one and 1.5 kilograms (2.2 to 3.5 pounds). Cubs open their eyes 15 to 16 days after birth. Though weaned at four to six months of age, cubs do not leave their mother to stake out their own territories until she has given birth to her next litter. Young males look for territories away from where they were born, but females sometimes share their mothers’ territories. The life span of tigers in the wild is eight to 10 years, while tigers in captivity may live for 26 years.

Present Status

Tigers are categorized as Endangered in the 2003 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species and are listed under Appendix I of CITES. The Bengal Tiger is under first class protection in China. Tigers are included in Schedule I, Part I of the Indian Wild Life (Protection) Act of 1972. The population of tigers has decreased over 95% in the last century. There are probably only about 5,000 to 7,000 tigers left in the wild. The Bengal Tiger is the most numerous of the remaining tiger sub-species, with an estimated population of 3,159 to 4,715 in the wild. There may be only about 30 to 35 Bengal tigers in Tibet and China.

Threats to Survival

Tigers have become endangered primarily due to poaching, hunting, and habitat loss brought about by extensive logging. Tiger bone (of which each tiger has approximately 8 to 10 kilograms) sells on the streets of Taiwan for US$3,250 per kilogram – a quarter the price of gold. A tiger pelt

sells for as much as US$10,000, which is the equivalent of 10 years of government salary in Indochina. Other tiger body parts are sold for medicinal and spiritual purposes, including tiger brain and tiger whiskers. Medicines made from tiger brain are thought to cure acne, while a tiger’s whiskers are used as charms for protection and courage. Tigers are hunted for sport as well. The solitary way of life of tigers is in some ways detrimental to the tigers’ survival. Apart from not being able to profit from group hunting as lions do, tigers cannot rely on other tigers to bring them food while recuperating from injuries or immediately before and after giving birth.