Amur Tiger or Siberian Tiger Panthera Tigris Altaica

Amur or Siberian Tiger Panthera Tigris Altaica 

Siberian Tiger

The Amur Tiger or Siberian tiger lives primarily in the coniferous, scrub oak, and birch woodlands of eastern Russia, with a few tigers found in northeastern China and northern North Korea. Amur tigers are the largest of the tiger subspecies. Males can grow up to 3.3 meters (10’ 9”) long and weigh up to 300 kilograms (660 pounds). Females are smaller, measuring about 2.6 meters (8 1/2 feet) from head to tail, and weighing about 100 to 167 kilograms (200 to 370 pounds).

Amur Tiger

The Amur tiger’s orange coloring is paler than the coloring of other tigers. Its stripes are brown rather than black, and are widely spaced. It has a white chest and belly, and a thick white ruff of fur around its neck. The primary prey of the Amur tiger is elk and wild boar (Ecology and Conservation of the Siberian Tiger, 1998).

Amur Tiger

In the Russian far east, these prey species are unevenly distributed and move seasonally. As a result, the territory size of Amur tigers is quite large, ranging from 100-400 km2 (39 154 mile2) for females to 800 1,000 km2 (309 390 mile2) for males (Nowell and Jackson, 1996 ).

Black Tiger Beautiful Tailed

Melanistic or black tigers have tawny, yellow or white stripes on a black ground color. In October 1992, the skin of a melanistic tiger was recovered from smugglers at Tis Hazari. The skin measured eight and a half feet and was displayed at the National Museum of Natural History, New Delhi in February of 1993 (Kumar, 1993). The existence of black tigers without stripes has been reported, but has never been substantiated by specimens or photographs.

Black Tiger

Eating
Over much of the tiger’s broad geographic range, wild pig, wild cattle and several species of deer are its major prey. All prey are forest or grassland ungulates that range in size from 65 to 2,000 pounds (30-900 kg). Typically, wild tigers gorge themselves on fresh kills, and can eat as much as 40 pounds (18 kg) of meat at one time. The tiger will not eat again for several days.

Hunting
Black Tigers are ambush hunters, stalking their prey, approaching as closely as possible, and then charging the animal from behind. They usually bite the neck or throat of their prey. The neck-bite, which severs the spinal cord, is typically used on small or medium sized prey, while the throat bite, which causes suffocation, is used on larger animals.

Following mating, the gestation period for tigers is approximately 103 days. The male tiger does not stay with the female after mating, and does not participate in raising the cubs. The average litter size of tigers is two or three cubs (the largest is five). One usually dies at birth. Tiger cubs are born blind and weigh only about two to three pounds (1 kg), depending on the subspecies. They live on their mother’s milk for six to eight weeks before the female begins taking them to kills to feed. They begin making their own kills at about 18 months of age. Young tigers leave their mother’s range at anywhere from a year and a half to three years of age, depending on whether the mother has another litter. Females tend to stay closer to the mother’s range than males.

Black Tiger

Social Behavior
Adult tigers are solitary animals that establish their territories in areas with enough prey, cover and water to support them. The difficulty of locating prey in tiger habitat makes it more efficient for tigers to hunt alone. As a result, they do not tend to form social groups like lions. The territory of a tiger usually ranges in size from about 10 to 30 square miles (26-78 sq. km), although the territory of a Siberian tiger may be as large as 120 square miles (310 sq. km). The size of a tiger’s territory depends on the amount of prey available. Tiger territories are not exclusive. Several tigers may follow the same trails at different times, and a male’s territory usually overlaps those of several females.

White Tiger Origanaly India Tiger

Multiple sightings of the white tiger, a colour variant of Panthera tigris tigris, from central India to Assam have been reported1. White or partially white tigers are not uncommon in some of the dry
open jungles of central India Authentic records of white tiger from India include the report of the first white tiger that reached England in 1820 and was exhibited alive in the Exeter Change (Exchange) menagerie at the tower of London. A second one was killed at Poona about 1892. In March 1899, a
white tiger was shot in Upper Assam and the skin was sent to Calcutta.

These reports are found in the Game Animals of India. A record of a white tiger from Poona was published in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London in 1891. Shooting of awhite tigress was also reported in the Indian Forester, May 1909. Records of cases of white tigers of the last 50 years prior to 1959 in the diaries of Rewa including a two-year-old male captured in December 1915 are available.

White Tiger

A description of this tiger appeared in the Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society. It recorded not less than 17 white tigers shot in India between 1907 and 1933. A white tiger that was shot in the Bilaspur District of the then Central Province at about 6 years prior to 1916 was also described6. E. P. Gee recorded accounts of 35 white tigers from the wild up to 1959. Thus, shooting of white tiger was common between 1892 and 1922 in Orissa, Upper Assam, Bilaspur, Cooch Behar and Poona.

The history of white tiger in India can be traced in some of the paintings, which were drawn and recorded after 27 years of an incident in 1561 AD . However, the earliest authentic report of
shooting of a white tiger in India is stated to be in 1907. Reports of white tigers in Assam are
available. In Sivasagar District, Upper Assam, there is a tea estate called ‘Bogabagh’ meaning ‘white tiger’ in Assamese, and refers to two white tigers found there in the early 1900s.

Also, a report exists of the killing of a white tiger in Assam in March 1851. The unnoticed report is a much earlier record of the killing of a white tiger in India. According to The Orunodoi, a white tiger was beaten to death in Dibrugarh District, Assam and its head and skin were brought to ‘Shrijut Doctor Sharlok Sahab’. The fur of the tiger was long and completely white without any spots10.
The report is also supplemented with a drawing of the tiger. This may be the earliest authentic report of killing of a white tiger in India.

White Tiger

As a signatory of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (2001), the Indian Government was compelled to restrict the production and use of industrial chemicals and pesticides.
However, the present situation is not encouraging. This may be due to the following reasons: Lack of awareness, information and education about chemical hazards and international treaties related to chemicals. Higher rate of illiteracy plays a major role in this context. Absence of regulatory mechanisms to monitor chemical production and disposal.  Lack of a database to measure chemical impacts on health and environment. Lack of on-site disaster management plan in small-scale and medium-sized chemical industry.

With respect to legislation regarding chemical management, India is well placed. In such a large country like India with its diverse spectrum of chemical manufacturing and consumption, laying of legislation is not an easy task. Proper execution is also required. This can be achieved by educating the people about chemicals and their impact on health and environment. Proper knowledge about pesticides and their effects on groundwater can prevent groundwater contamination. Increment of the inter-industry interaction and collaboration in discussing emerging scenarios after chemical release, environmental impacts, expectation, and roles and resources pooling will prevent on-site chemical disaster. The thrust areas should be groundwater quality, chemical residue in food, public and occupational health, storage and disposal of obsolete chemicals, chemical poisoning and chemical accident during transportation.

Leopard Panthera Pardus Populations In Africa

The leopard, Panthera pardus, is on CITES Appendix I. The species, found in Asia and Africa, inhabits 31 sub-Saharan range States. Resolution states that whenever the CoP has set an export quota for a species listed on Appendix I, this satisfies the requirements of Article III regarding the finding that the export and the import will not be detrimental to the survival of the species, provided that the quota is not exceeded. In accordance with Resolution proposals for quotas must provide “supporting information including details of the scientific basis for the proposed quota”. Resolution: establishes annual export quotas for leopard skin hunting trophies and for personal use for eleven range States, recommends that importing Parties approve permits if the skins are from States with quotas, creates a skin tagging system, and provides that increased or new quotas must be approved by the CoP in accordance with Resolution. Annually, up to 2560 leopard skins and trophies may be exported under quotas.

Leopard

According to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (IUCN/SSC Cat Specialist Group, 2002), “based on estimates of density and geographic range (Nowell and Jackson, 1996), the leopard's total effective population size is estimated at greater than 50,000 mature breeding individuals, but with a declining trend due to persecution and degradation of its habitat and prey base.”

The model provides an indirect estimate of 714,000 leopards, but this is “generally considered to be an overestimate” (Nowell and Jackson, 1996). According to Nowell and Jackson (1996), the model has been criticized for “failure to account adequately for persecution and reduction of wild prey as factors lowering leopard density” and the questionable “universality of the correlation of leopard density and rainfall a variable representing preyprey density should be incorporated into the regression linking leopard density to rainfall”, and “while the link between herbivore density and rainfall may be generally valid, a herbivore biomass increase does not necessarily equate to increased leopard prey biomass.

The herbivore biomass could be in the form of very large species (elephant, buffalo, hippopotamus) or herd-forming species  (elephant, buffalo, hippopotamus) or herd-forming species (zebra and wildebeest), which provide little food for leopards.” Nowell and Jackson (1996) also provide information on how the model grossly overestimates the actual numbers of leopards determined by field studies:

Leporad Panthera Pardus

“The rainfall/density regression used by Martin and de Meulenaer (1988) suggest that Zaire would hold some 33% of sub-Saharan African leopards, a figure resulting from presumed very high densities in tropical rain forest (up to 40 leopards, including young and transients, per 100 km2). However, Baily (1993) is among several authorities who have argued that since terrestrial mammalian prey biomass is lower in rain forest than in savannah environments, as the bulk of productivity is locked up in the tree canopy, therefore leopard density should be correspondingly lower. D. Jenny (in litt. 1994) provides a preliminary estimate of five adult leopards in his 80 km2 study area in Taï NP, or 6.25 leopards per 100 km2. J. Hart (in litt. 1994) offers a preliminary estimate of one adult leopard per 8-12 km2 in Zaire’s Ituri forest, or 8.3-12.5 leopards per 100 km2. These estimates are considerably lower than the 40 leopards per 100 km2 suggested by Martin and de Meulenaer’s rainfall/density regression.”

Regarding the Martin and de Meulenaer (1988) model, Norton (1990) warned, “Results of ecological studies on leopards in the Cape Province, South Africa, carried out by the Chief Directorate: Nature and Environmental Conservation, suggest that some of the assumptions on which the population estimates are based are highly suspect, and that the population figures may be unrealistically high. The recommendations for leopard conservation and management should therefore be viewed with caution, especially hunting quotas based on a proportional offtake from the "estimated total" population.”

Jaguar Panthera and Tiger Jaguar

The Jaguar Panthera onca, categorized as Near Threatened on the IUCN Red List (IUCN, 2003), is the largest felid in the western hemisphere and the third largest felid worldwide. Jaguars are distributed from northern Mexico to Argentina and inhabit areas in the arid scrublands of northern Mexico, the moist tropical forests of Central and South America, and the grasslands of the Pantanal in Brazil. The jaguar is a landscape species (i.e. occupying large home ranges that often extend beyond protected area boundaries, having a significant impact on the structure and function of ecosystems, and requiring a diversity of ecosystem types; Coppolillo et al., in press; Sanderson et al., 2002a).

Jaguars are currently threatened by the effects of habitat destruction and fragmentation, illegal hunting and prey depletion. The current estimated known range of the jaguar is thought to be <50% of its range in 1900, although 70% of the area within their current range is thought to have a high probability of being able to support their long-term survival (Sanderson et al., 2002b).

Jaguar Panthera

Like many other large felids, jaguars are difficult to monitor because of their cryptic nature, large home range sizes, and low population densities. Recent efforts to develop a range-wide approach to jaguar conservation (Sanderson et al., 2002b) brought to light a lack of population data for the species. Despite more than three decades of field research on jaguars, few studies have estimated
jaguar populations. Where estimates have been made, they are usually based upon assumptions about the occurrence and home range sizes of a few individuals (Schaller & Crawshaw, 1980; Rabinowitz & Nottingham, 1986; Crawshaw & Quigley, 1991; Aranda, 1998). Toachieve conservation objectives that adequately protect jaguar populations, conservation planners need accurate estimates of densities across a variety of habitats.

In an effort to provide a population monitoring technique that can be used throughout the jaguars’ range, we adapted a method first developed and implemented to monitor tiger Panthera tigris populations in India. The technique takes advantage of distinctive individual markings through photographs taken with remote camera stations, and applies the theoretical framework of mark/recapture models to estimate population abundance.

Jaguar

The third site in Bolivia was an Amazonian rainforest site in the Madidi National Park and Natural Area of Integrated Management. The region is characterized by a marked dry season between April and November and a mean annual precipitation of 2,230 mm. This forest is characterized by a relatively open canopy and a large proportion of palms of the genera Scheelea, Astrocaryum,
Socratea and Jessenia. For 8 years before the creation of the Madidi protected area in 1995 the area was exploited for high-value commercial timber species. The camp was situated at Pacaysal on the Tuichi River and at Marihui on the Hondo River. Cameras were placed during the dry season on beaches along the Tuichi and Hondo rivers and several smaller tributaries, as well as on a grid of
trails established between 2001 and 2002 immediately prior to and during the survey.

The final major assumption of the model is that no jaguars within the sampled area have a zero probability of being captured. The smallest conservatively estimated home range size for jaguar is 10 km2 for a female jaguar in a Central American tropical forest habitat (Rabinowitz & Nottingham, 1986). With no data from the dry forest Chaco sites in Bolivia, we assumed home ranges in the
Chaco to be roughly twice as large (20 km2) for a female jaguar. Consequently, we placed cameras such that no areas without cameras greater than 10 km2 (rainforest in Belize and Bolivia) or 20 km2 (dry Chaco forest in Bolivia) existed within the sample area.