TIGERS ON THE HUNT: PREY, METHODS, SUCCESS RATIOS

TIGER FOOD

Tigers are primarily carnivores (mainly eat meat or animal parts) and mostly eat terrestrial vertebrates. Animal foods include birds, mammals, reptiles, fish. They sometimes rstore or cache food. Bengal tigers eat an average of six kilograms (13 pounds) of meat a day. A mother with two cubs needs about nine kilograms (20 pounds) a day.

Every tiger requires a breeding prey population of 500 animals in its territory to ensure a "food bank", experts told the BBC. Feeding tigers generally consume 18 to 27 kilograms (40 to 60 pounds) of meat in one sitting but have been observed eating 36 kilograms (80 pounds) at one time and consuming 41 kilograms (90 pounds) a day. Tigers can endure great lengths of time without a meal. . When tigers eat a lot their stomachs are sometimes so distended they can hardly move.

Tigers can kill animals four times their size but will eat locusts, termites, rats, other rodents, lizards, fish and frogs if they are desperately hungry. they are fastidious eaters. Even when ravenously hungry they dress their prey and lick away any blood before eating. Tigers usually eat the hindquarters first and work forward. When a tiger reaches the abdomen it pulls out the intestines of the prey and carefully empties the rumen sack. The sandpaper rough tongue cleans away the bones. The neatness of their eating habits make tiger kills easy to identify. Tigers drink from streams and rivers s well as fetid pools filled with rotting leaves, insects, and monkey urine. Tigers sometimes eat fruit. They have been observed getting drunk from munching on fermented durians.

The majority of the tiger diet consists of various large ungulate species, including sambar (Rusa unicolor), chital (Axis axis), hog deer (Axis porcinus), barasingha (Rucervus duvaucelii), barking deer (Muntiacus muntjak), elk (Cervus elaphus), sika deer (Cervus nippon), Eurasian elk (Alces alces), roe deer (Capreolus capreolus), muskdeer (Moschus moschiferus), nilgai (Boselaphus tragocamelus), black buck (Antilope cervicapra), gaur (Bos frontalis), banteng (Bos javanicus), water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis), and wild pigs (Sus). Domestic ungulates are also taken, including cattle (Bos taurus), water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis), horses (Equus caballus), and goats (Capra hircus). In rare cases tigers attack Malayan tapirs (Tapirus indicus), Indian elephants (Asian elephants), and young Indian rhinoceroses (Indian rhinoceroses). Tigers regularly attack and eat brown bears (Ursus arctos), Asiatic black bears (Ursus thibetanus), and sloth bears (Melursus ursinus). Smaller animals are sometimes taken when larger prey is unavailable, this includes large birds such as pheasants (Phasianinae), leopards (Panthera pardus), fish, crocodiles (Crocodylus), turtles, porcupines (Hystrix), rats, and frogs. A very few tigers begin to hunt humans (Homo sapiens). [Source: Kevin Dacres, Animal Diversity Web (ADW) /=]

Tigers on the Hunt

Wild tigers make a kill about once a week and have a try-to-kill ratio of between 10 to 1 and 20 to 1.
In a study done in India by George Schaller in the 1960s, tigers were most active before 8:00am and after 4:00om. Tigers are believed to locate their prey using hearing and sight more than olfaction. They approach their prey as stealthily as they can , taking advantage of every bush, rock and tree for cover. They rarely chase prey far. Almost silent, tigers take cautious, measured steps and keeping low to the ground so their prey doesn’t hear or see them. Tigers are successful predators but only one out of 10 to 20 attacks result in a successful hunt. [Source: Kevin Dacres, Animal Diversity Web (ADW) /=]/=\

Tigers hunt mainly at night but often hunt in the day and have even been observed hunting in the middle of the afternoon when most other big cats take a siesta. They generally stalk their prey, often by slinking stealthily through the high grass, and charge their prey at relatively short distances from the side or from behind. In grassland, they tend to hide well camouflaged in the bush along game trails and spring on their prey in lightning attacks. Tigers also like to attack prey when they are in water and have been known to chase victims up trees.

Tigers prefer to hunt in dense vegetation and along routes where they can move quietly. They normally cover eight to 15 miles when they do their hunting round at night. They make a “pook” sound when they are looking for prey. In snow, Siberian tigers select routes on frozen river beds, in paths made by ungulates, or anywhere else that has a reduced snow depth. Injured tigers often have difficulty hunting and thus eventually die from starvation or infection. Pale colored scant means the tiger hasn’t eaten for a while.

Tigers Making a Kill

Tigers typically kill by ambushing prey, throwing the prey off balance with their weight as they leap onto it. Tigers use their powerful forelegs, the size of a man’s thighs, to knock down and grab hold of prey. The final kill is made with their powerful jaws and the stabbing action of their canines and bone shearing of their incisors.

According to Animal Diversity Web: Tigers use one of two tactics when they get close enough to kill. Small animals, weighing less than half the weight of the tiger, are killed by a bite to the back of the neck. The canines are inserted between the neck vertebrae forcing them apart and breaking the spinal cord. For larger animals, a bite to the throat is used to crush the animal’s trachea and suffocate it. The throat bite is the safer killing tactic because it minimizes any physical assault the tiger may receive while trying to kill its prey. [Source: Kevin Dacres, Animal Diversity Web (ADW) /=]/=\

Most victims are killed within 90 seconds by a bite to that nape of the neck or spine or by an asphyxiating throat hold. In the latter, a tiger clamps down on the prey’s windpipe, cutting off the air supply until the prey stops breathing. The puncture marks made by the tiger's canine's are bigger than a person’s index fingers.

For tigers, killing is an instinct. In one experiments, young tigers, who had never seen a real deer or received training in hunting, charged foam deer model scented with deer urine. In another experiment they climbed trees to get at the skin of a wild boar.

When asked he found most interesting about tigers, Ullas Karanth, director of the Wildlife Conservation Society's India Program, told the New York Times in 2006: “The way nature has designed them. They are built to take down prey four to five times their own size. If I went into the forest, it would be hard for me to get within striking range of a deer. This huge cat does it effortlessly. It can grab onto something that weighs about a ton, wrestles it down and kill it, all very safely and quietly. [Source: Claudia Dreifus, New York Times, August 16, 2005]

Tiger Kills

Tigers feed on a kill for roughly two or three days, rest for two days more and then spend two days hunting before finally making another kill. Because so much energy is spent located prey and killing it, hunting large animals is considered more efficient than hunting smaller ones. After the prey is taken to cover, tigers feed first on the buttocks using the carnassials to rip open the carcass. As the tiger progresses it opens the body cavity and removes the stomach. Not all of the prey is eaten; some parts are rejected. Prey are usually dragged to cover and may be left there and revisited over several days.

A kill often lasts a tiger several days. After a meal is over, the carcass is either dragged to a concealed place or covered with branches and leaves and guarded against other animals and other tigers. Powerful jaw, neck and chest muscles allow them to drag their prey a long way. Tigers fiercely defend any kill they make. Geoffrey Ward, author of “The Tiger-Wallahs”, once asked his guide why feeding tigers were so aggressive. The guide replied, "Tigers do not like to share.”

Tigers fiercely defend their kills. Ward, wrote “when a tiger is surprised on a kill, it follows a fairly standardized routine to scare off anyone who ventures too close. First it give a warning roar (I heard this sound twice, and found it awesomely persuasive both times). Then it roars even louder. Then, if the intruder “still” fails to back off, it may make a mock charge. Finally, as likely as not, it will turn and run rather than launch an all-out attack."

Tiger Prey

They prey primarily on deer and wild pigs but have been seen eating porcupines (quills in the mouth sometime produce fatal infections); dragging a 400-pound buffalo a third of a mile through the bush; and swimming with a 200 pound deer in their mouth. Tigers have killed baby elephants, young rhinos and adult leopards and bears. Tigers, weighing 500 pounds, have been observed feasting on deer weighing 700 pounds and bringing down a one-ton gaurs.

Tigers get meat anyway they can. They will scavenge carcasses, seize prey taken by other tigers, drive leopards from their prey, wrestle crocodiles in the water to get their kills, and steal birds killed by smaller wild cats. Tigers have been observed walking into bushes and trees, blinded by the wings of bird they were carrying in their mouth.

Different species of animals seem to cooperate when a tiger is the general area, sending out calls that can be heard over a large area. Barking deer bark and sambars make a loud “poning” noise. Monkeys, peafowl, jungle fowl and a variety of their bird send out alarm calls that not only alert their own kind but also warn other species. When the tiger is near, however, the forest becomes deadly quiet as no animal wants to give away its position.

Water Hole Tiger Hunts

Many tigers stake out water holes and chase prey into the water. Once a tiger gets a hold of a victim it hold its head under water until it drowns. Crocodiles and alligator kill using a similar method.

During the dry season most kills are made at water holes, where tigers go after swamp deer, which feed in the water, and sambar deer which often wander into the middle of the water hole, where they are vulnerable, to feed on water lilies. The high grass around the water hole is a perfect place for a tiger to hide and wait.

One technique that serves a tiger well is chasing panicked deer from shallow to deep water where the tiger grabs the deer. Describing one such attack Breeden wrote: "In four gigantic bounds [the tiger] pounces on the fawn, pushes it underwater, and grabs it in his powerful jaws. He shakes it. Trotting back to shore, he disappears in the grass."

Stalking Tiger Hunts

Stalking tigers often spend twenty minutes or more making their stalk, trying to creep within 40 feet or so of their prey, on padded feet that don't make a sound, to get in position to attack. Tigers often have to make the kill in the initial charge or the attack is unsuccessful. Prey do their best to avoid becoming kills. When a spotted deer senses a tiger is near it freezes, ears up, and sometimes makes a loud barking noise. To avoid a tiger attack can leap into the air and skip sideways up to15 meters.

When a tiger spots a small herd of spotted deer, Breeden writes, "suddenly the tiger stops in his tracks. He makes not a motion — no tail twitch, no ear movement, not even a whisker quivers. He is frozen in the partial cover of a small patch of grass. As long as he is motionless, the deer can not see him, even at 30 or 40 feet. There is no breeze, so they cannot scent him. Slowly the tiger lies down. For half an hour or more he watches the deer. Then, carefully placing one foot in front of the other so as to not make a sound in the dry leaf litter, he moves himself from bush to bush."

"Though grazing quietly," Breeden continues, "the deer are alert...One sniffs the air, there must be a faint tiger scent, for the doe stamps a forefoot, a sign of mild alarm...The tiger is rigid in a crouch. The doe stamps her foot again, raises her tail, sounds a bell-like alarm call. The tiger bursts from cover, tail erect, ears forward. In unbelievable fast bounds he rushes the deer. They scatter...He misses, snarls, and utters a series of moaning roars." In his ten years with tigers Breeden said he witnessed only one successful kill.

Large Carnivores Help Ecosystems

In January 2014, AFP reported: “The gradual decline of large carnivores such as lions, wolves or pumas is threatening the Earth's ecosystems, scientists warned as they launched an appeal to protect such predators. More than 75 per cent of 31 large carnivore species are on the decline, and 17 of them now occupy less than half of their former ranges, says a study published in the American journal Science. [Source: AFP, January 10, 2014]

"Globally, we are losing large carnivores," wrote William Ripple, lead author of the study and a professor in the Department of Forest Ecosystems and Society at Oregon State University. "Many of them are endangered," Ripple wrote. "Their ranges are collapsing. Many of these animals are at risk of extinction, either locally or globally. And, ironically, they are vanishing just as we are learning about their important ecological effects."

Ripple and his colleagues reviewed published scientific reports and focused on seven species that have been studied for their widespread ecological effects. They are African lions, leopards, Eurasian lynx, cougars, gray wolves, sea otters and dingoes. The different reports show that a decline in pumas and wolves in Yellowstone National Park led to an increase in animals that feed on tree leaves and bushes, such as deer and elk. This disrupts the growth of vegetation and shifts populations of birds and small mammals, the researchers said.

In Europe, fewer lynx have been tied to overpopulation of roe deer, red foxes and hares, while in Africa the disappearance of lions and leopards has coincided with a dramatic increase in the number of olive baboons, which threaten farm crops and livestock. In Alaska, a decline in sea otters through killer whale depredation has triggered a rise in sea urchins and loss of kelp beds.

"Nature is highly interconnected," said Ripple. "The work at Yellowstone and other places shows how one species affects another and another through different pathways." For instance, avoiding overpopulation of herbivores allows forest flora to develop more and sequester more carbon dioxide, the main green house gas responsible for global warming. But the authors of the study say it will be very hard to convince people to accept a large scale restoration of large carnivore populations. People are afraid of them and have fought them to protect their livestock and their communities, they said.

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons

Text Sources: Animal Diversity Web animaldiversity.org ; National Geographic, Live Science, Natural History magazine, David Attenborough books, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian magazine, Discover magazine, The New Yorker, Time, Reuters, Associated Press, AFP, Lonely Planet Guides, Wikipedia, The Guardian, Top Secret Animal Attack Files website and various books and other publications.

Last updated January 2025