Talk:Siberian Tiger

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[edit] Name

The Siberian Tiger is the Siberian Tiger everywhere, except perhaps in China. This name change was instituted by an anonymous user, 66.75.31.229. Look at this user's other contributions. Surely this was a hoax, was it not? Wetman 02:48, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

  • I think so too, so I've changed the name back to Siberian Tiger. Although perhaps it should be further switched with 'Siberian tiger' which is currently a redirect. —danakil 01:08, Sep 9, 2004 (UTC)
    • In Russia it is "Amur tiger". Technically, the Russian Far East is not Siberia.
And Koreans tend to call it the Korean Tiger. --Dan 17:41, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Regarding the name, I'm going to change all references to the cat as the "Amur Tiger" to "Siberian Tiger." In reading the article I was confused by calling it, in some sections Siberian and other Amur. The title of the article is "Siberian Tiger" and that is how it should be referred to through the rest of the article. Liontamarin (talk) 02:32, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Indeed the article is called Siberian Tiger, it is the Accepted name among zoos and scientists. This is how it will remain. I ask users to please respect the article and not change it back to Amur. CheetahKeeper (talk) 04:39, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Resolved.

[edit] Able to kill a full grown cow with one swipe of its paw?

Can anyone verify this? I have been told reports of Siberian tigers having so much force in their swipes that they are able to instantly kill a full grown cow.

You may find the answer here: http://www.discovervancouver.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=68779&whichpage=2

It says tiger can kill gaur 1.7 tons and water buffalo 1.5 tons, so a 400 kg cow can be killed with 1 blow, no big deal. Take it easy! There are 2 posted videos of gaur and buffalo too. Giant indeed!!!! -G

[edit] Disputed

Both this and Bengal Tiger claim to be the biggest. Which is correct?

It's said that it will attack asiatic black female bears under 600 pounds and generally avoid 800 pounds + Looking at the asiatic black bears link, THEY COME NO WHERE CLOSE TO THAT WEIGHT, the heaviest they get by looking at the average weight is about 200 kilograms, it's recorded average is at 150 kilograms, which is no where close to 600 pounds. Something is wrong —Preceding unsigned comment added by 211.30.228.96 (talk) 17:42, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

This sentence is also contradictory with the taxobox, which indicates that it's a subspecies, not a species. -- Smjg 16:05, 14 August 2005 (UTC)


The Siberian Tiger is not a subspecies, but rather a species, and it is quite a bit larger than the Bengal Tiger.

  • It is larger, but it is not a distict species; it is a sub species. All tigers are Panthera tigris, and the third part, such as the second tigris in the Bengal tiger's Panthera tigris tigris or the altaica in the Siberian tiger's Panthera tigris altaica, is the subspecies.

How about writing it like "The Siberian Tiger is the largest naturally ocurring member of the Feline family."?

the male tiger can grow to be larger than a station wagon. the female tiger can grow to be * 10 1/2 feet long

--

Despite all the arguments, the general scientific consensus is that the Amur Tiger is the biggest, Many serious sources mention it, including:

A few printed encyclopedias I remember reading also mention it (can provide ISBN if you are interested). This seems to be the consensus, and I believe we should go with it.

In general, it does make perfect biological sense as in general members of the same or closely related species tend to grow in size in colder/harsher conditions. (Ilvar 22:54, 12 October 2006 (UTC))

Yes, with every thing else being equal. That's not the case of Siberian tiger vs Northern indian, Nepal and Myanmar bengal tiger. Btw, 13 feet tiger, as well as 12 feet lion skins, are from old skins that have been stretched, so don't be proud of them, they are a lie. No tiger has been over 3.6m on record, bengal or siberian.

The NG source is right, but they never said Siberian averaging 300 kg, the average word is made up by some user. They say: 300 kg, which is ambiguous. In this case, that usually means "up to".

300 kg is to much for average weight. After "Walker´s mamals of the world" siberian tigers weigh up to 300 kg!--Altaileopard 15:06, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

It looks like some users can't stand the fact that Siberian tiger < Northern Bengal tiger. Let's put an end to it.

The 384 kg record is a fake. No serious reference source includes this figure, as it doesn’t exist, just another estimate. This weight come off children books, and then put on the Internet by shallow people. Guinness records for animals, Grzimek and then Oxford mammal encyclopedia , “big cat: kingdom of might” are among the most repescted ref. about mammals and tigers, they all say average weight is 500 lbs, and they know of no such stupid 384 kg record. The book “big cat: kingdom of might” specifies the largest Siberian tiger on record was a huge male, killed in Russia in 1934 weghed 347 kg, 40 kg less than the largest recorded Northern indian tiger, another killed in Manchurian in 1962 weighed 320 kg, or 705 lbs. More, Mr. Igor paelanov, a leading Siberian tiger authority of Russia, even with 4 decades of tiger field study, said in this book “Tiger in the snow” that he never knew or even heard of any wild Siberian > 650 lbs, and all the measurements are considerably smaller than hunters’ estimated records in the past. He concluded: The Siberian, which suffers from prey poor habitat, are likely to weigh less than the mighty Bengal. They only appear larger due to their thick coat in winter.

So, even an Russian expert does acknowledge the size of the Siberian and he feels comfortable, why don't other people?

Excuse me, I don't want to be rude or anything, but the weight 350 kg(771 lbs) are from a reliable textbook, so don't change it to larger no. And the 384 kg record doesn't exist, really.

And now there's another expert agreeing that Siberian tiger < Bengal tiger:


This saying comes directly from an interview with Dr. Mel Sunquist, author of the book: Tiger moon, and a field experts on tiger who himself measured tigers' size and weight, including these Nepalese bengal tigers in the 1980s:

"The Sauhara tiger (aka 105) was estimated to weigh 600 lbs., our scale only went to 500 lbs and he bottomed the scale easily. Another estimate of 600 lbs was generated using a regression analysis based on known weights and several morphological measurements.

T101 was a large female weighing 350 lbs... T102 was an adult male weighing 440 lbs. All the recent weights and measurements that I've seen strongly suggest that Bengal tigers are larger than Siberians.

Mel Sunquist"

If that's not enough, here is what Dr. Sunquist writes in recent his book: "Wild cats of the world"

Average size of Amur Tigers is 495 lbs. - Source: Sunquist, Mel and Fiona Sunquist. 2002. Wild Cats of the World. University Of Chicago Press, Chicago

North west Indian and Nepalese Tigers are averaging 517 lbs. Source: Sunquist, Mel and Fiona Sunquist. 2002. Wild Cats of the World. University Of Chicago Press, Chicago

And as amazing as it may sound, nepalese tigers by no means the largest of the Northern Indian tiger race. The title belongs to the tiger of Assam, Northeast Indian, and Myanmar:

According to Dr. Mel Sunquist the tigers in Kaziranga national park of Assam are the largest bengal tigers he has come across and according to him, these tigers are larger than Nepal tigers. This comes from the same book.

In a word, with size smaller than the North west Indian and Nepalese Tigers, let alone the Myanmar and Assam tigers, The Siberian tiger is the 3rd largest of wild tigers, along with south and Central indian tigers.

Siberians pretty easily hold the records for size and weight in captivity and have historically been regarded as the largest of the tiger sub-species. In recent times wild measurements have seemed to dispute this but in the context of today's Siberian population all living in an area with particularly low prey-density and all living under the threat of poaching of which both limit what weights they can attain I'm inclined to favor the captive results which would be better test subjects. While Bengals certainly suffer many of the same threats there are times and places where specific parks have been able to keep poaching of prey species and tigers down where in Russia legal hunting of prey species and poaching have been a more or less constant presence. -Amur_Tiger —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.86.112.161 (talk) 21:12, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Given the same conditions (ie. captivity), Siberian tigers seem to be larger than Indian tigers. Also, by far the largest tiger skulls came from Manchuria, where the biggest Siberian tigers were always found, probably due to high prey density. I believe the largest tiger skull on record belongs to a tiger from this region. So it would be interesting to compare the Indian tigers of Assam with the Siberian large tigers that used to populate Manchuria.

But that still wouldn't really tell us wich is the largest subspeciues. To do that we have to compare Indian tigesr from all regions (south, central and north India, Bangladesh, western Burma, etc) and captivity, with Siberian tigers from all regions, as well as captivity. As far as I'm aware no one has done such a comparison. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dpwes (talk • contribs) 16:40, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] 1988 Olympics

The article says Hodori is a Siberian Tiger. I didn't have much luck (in a short 5 minute search) finding any respectable sites saying he is a Siberian Tiger. Tiger just mentions him being a "stylized tiger". Is this accurate? Ash Lux 00:09, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

December 2005 (UTC)

can you please show me some pictures???

[edit] Prey

Someone erases the sentence: Siberian tiger preys on Brown bear. Well, can you give me the reason why? Some tigers do prey on brown bear In Russian far-east.


[edit] Grizzly vs Tiger

Does anyone have a reference to siberian tigers eating grizzly bears? Grizzly bears can be 2X heavier than a siberian tiger. Here is a website that talks about pit fights between grizzlies, lions and bulls.

http://www.lairweb.org.nz/tiger/conflict13.html

That and this is their territory...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Grizzly_map.gif

As you demonstrated quite effectively fights between grizzlies and tigers are quite impossible a rather large Pacific ocean lying between the two... the asiatic brown bear on the other hand isn't so lucky. The truth of the matter is the big Siberian males are quite capable of hunting down the smaller brown bears. However it is important to note that this is through hunting not a head to head fight, they would be stalked, chased and killed as prey not as a competitor, specifically tigers have been known to do this to bears during the winter while they're hibernating. However in a face to face fight the tiger is at a great disadvantage having to deal with the heavy club-like paws of brown bears which shatter the relatively fragile skull of the feline. In the end the only real predation that takes place is tigers eating bears while bears may get into fights with tigers I don't think they have the hunting skills to stalk one effectively.

So, you are another member of the type who thinks bear's claw is formidable. Sad but true, they are not. Have a good look at the grizzly's claws again. Are they something that can shatter the skull? To be accurate, they are capable of making some sratches on the skin of the tiger's skull! Who have seen a brown bear take on a tiger? No, that's something written on newspaper and some scientific journals: infotainment. Because, the reality is: Tiger is formidable for all types of bear, 600kg or not. The only thing of advantage for bear is its large size, and there's no reason why a softy brown bear would try to attck a tiger to steal its kills. That is highly fatal, and the point for that? Food! And the bear can get sufficient food from plants and carcasses found in the forest. No reason for taking on a tiger for prey kills, that's it. After all, bear is only bear,omnivorous. the lairweb is a stupid site that would not respond to my email regarding that stupid story. Note that,Siberian tiger is average, and gentle, but indochinese and bengal tigers that can kill very large wild cattles and break open the neck of water buffaloes with their sharp, powerful claws will just laugh at the mild-mannered brown bear if the bear wants to get a hand on their kills. But, one thing to note: Nothing is absolute. Sometimes a tiger(Siberian) just walks sliently away when a large brown bear approaches the kill scene. Why? Who knows? My best guess is that the animal is too small-hearted of a tiger ( usually an inexperienced tiger), or it's simply not hungry and so does not want an unnecessary fight.


Actually it's not the claws in and of themself that make them dangerous, just the weight of them and the bone and muscle around them that make their paws into maces that can shatter the relatively fragile feline skull, as was proved by some Californians who set up Grizzly vs. Tiger and Grizzly vs. Lion fights. In those fight the big cats would often come up against the bear, head on aiming to bite it's neck and instead get their head smashed in. Now that might seem to make it a win for bears, but these are far from natural conditions and play to the bear's habits more then the lion or the tiger's. As stated before tigers have been found to hunt down and kill bears, something which hasn't been returned to them, hunting wise there should be no suprise to find that the tiger wins out, fight wise it's also no suprise to see the bear win because of the way it's built and how it lives life. There are still to this day occational stories of big male Siberians lost to brown bears, the opposing cases of tigers hunting them are probably ommitted for they likly occur more often and aren't a species of such concern. Finnally the lairweb is a good site that has some of the best info about tigers on the web and it has been for a long time, the fact that they don't respond only means that the site, quite old now, isn't that actively maintained.

-Amur_Tiger

You made a good and constructive argument. I just want to add on something: In the natural habitat, bears hardly use their claws at all, as it has no strength to do enough damage. In fact, in all of the documentaries about bears, I never saw them utilize the claws, save for digging and wrestling. i owned about 80 DVD of wildlife documentaries, read many animal books, and have watched many others on diffrent channel, i never saw this once, except in the for-fun-only Animal face-off. Now, the muscles. Yes, the bear posesses good muscles, but they are nothing like that of a buffaloes 1200 kg or a rhino 2 tons. the sharp claws of the tiger, being about 9 - 12cm in length, can tear apart the muscles and thick skins of these animals,so i don't think tiger will have trouble with bear's muscles and weight. The only downside of siberian tiger is their weak ability in combating powerful preys. indian tigers have special tactics when dealing with much larger and dangerous preys, but not Amur tiger. So, when combating, i would say Siberian tiger has a little more chance to win than brown bear. One thing for certain: There is no such pit fight between old grizzly and big cats in which bears kill with a blow, that's so impossible. If a bear wins a tiger or lion, it must win by biting, that's that.

Certainly the Siberians don't have quite the same megafauna as their Bengal bretheren have but I'd be highly suprised to see that they would be incapable of bringing down of them down. I'd also like to know what you mean by 'special techniques'. Also their claws aren't actually meant for tearing through skin but for getting a good grip on their prey to prevent them from being thrown off. Finnally I would like you to explain why makes you think that pit fights of this sort have never been arranged and what makes you so certain that bears must bite to fight.

-Amur_Tiger

A Siberian Tiger can kill a cow with one swipe of it's paw. Excluding the claws, the sheer impact force would kill it.

-G

Good question Amur_tiger. About the special technique, i think it would be more fun for you to figure out for yourself, as I think you like tiger quite a lot ( your name says it, doesn't it? If wrong, I,m sorry). Forget about the bengal, they don't occur with brown bear, only with very large ungulates like elephant, thick-skinned rhino and wild cattles.While your arg about the tiger claw is true, it's not enough, claws are used for fighting as well. Fighting large animals, many times its size, the claws have been used to tear of the skin, because it's risky and inefficient to always attack with teeths. Elephant is the most prominent example. For small preys, the claws have been utilized as well, ex: procupine weighed about 18 kg, which sometimes lead to tiger's death. the tiger's claws are sharp, so no matter how thick or muscled the prey, it still can break open it. The bear, why it doesn't use claws? Because I have never seen it, though this is my 14th year of watching and reading animals. "Bear of the world", written by someone who live 40 years with brown bear, also accompany my conclusion, as does "living with the white bear", wriiten by a russian who live many years with Polar bear. If the claw is such a powerful weapon, the bear must have utilize it every so often, why waste it? i have seen brown bear bite myriad times, but not even once have i seen bear use claws to rain blows(forget about rain, even 2, 3 blows continously are so very rare). Wild alaska, the life of mammals, polar bear: shadow on the ice, and be the animal are recent bear documentary i collected, with the last one having brown bear fighting each other, they use teeth to kill, forepaws just to push. Lastly, pit fight of this sort has certainly been arranged, the bear perhaps won some fight, but the provider must make it more interesting by saying that the bear wins by clawing. I don't think it's possible to get a pic or a video of bear killing with paws, for it's not possible. In short, the myth that tiger is no match for large male brown is not true. Tiger is a match for bears of all sizes, to be objective. Bison is more than a match for any brown bear, so the 2nd myth, grizzly kills adult bison is also unrealistic.

I have studied tigers for 47 years and i have seen 11 Siberian Tiger vs Brown Bears Fights. The bear usually tries to push the tiger in order to make a bite but i have seen the tigers jump and knock the bear over and then biting them continuasly to inflict damage to their neck bones. In all the fights between these animals there is no instance in which the bear killed a tiger. In 4 of these fights the bear backed down or ran away and in the rest it died.

In one case i saw the biggest tiger i had ever seen killing the Kamachatka brown bear with just 2 blows. Now when you say the bear is over 3 times the size of the Siberian tiger you are wrong. The largest asiatic brown bear subspecies the kamachatka brown bear rarely exceeds 900lbs and the largest was only 991lbs (450kg) and on average they only weigh 230kg(506lbs) compared to the tigers average 227kg (500lbs). So now you know its not muscle by muscle.The biggest Siberian tiger i have seen was larger than the largest kamachatka Brown Bear i saw as the Tiger when tranqualized because he needed to be measured and cured of the wound he had suffered in a fight with another Tiger. I measured him to be 10 foot 8 inches and he weighed 302kg ( 664lbs) while the largest kamachatka brown bear i have ever seen measured 9 foot 3 inches and weighed rougly 265kg(583bs). I have heard about bengal tigers killing bears easily and they do in fact prey on bears if they can find one; therefore its the Tiger that usually kills the bear.

let me add one more thing: every where in the world, brown bear tips the scale at about 450-500kg. the reason why they reach 700 kg is because they overeat to accumulate energy for hibernation. that extra weight does not add any extra strength to the bears. So if you say a 680 kg brown bear in winter is formidable, it's only as formidable as another 450 kg bear in summer. Siberian tiger has no problem driving off brown bear from their kills. -S-

The lairweb homepage is definitively not reliable source to support your arguments. That homepage was fabricated with misinformations. When it comes to tiger vs bear, I have read a scientific paper claiming that tiger does predate on adult browm bear and none of these bears were killed during denning. However, the paper does not contain any details. Another thing I need to say is that siberian tiger never meets Kamchatka or Kodiak bear in wild. Anyway, I don't think that we should include the tiger vs bear question into our homepage here. -Kine-

It's much harder to kill bear in den site than in open air, especially for tiger's method of killing, so I agree with you on that. Kodiak bear, tiger never met, but don't forget that in winter, Russian brown bear has also been known to grow to as much as 720 kg in body weight, just as much as Kodiak bear. And for those who still believe that the bear's paw can do some magic, watch Grizzly man. there are alot more documentaries containing bear fighting scene, but this one is one of the most recent and easiest to find. After watching it, I am even more confident than before to say that with such pathetic fighting styles, the bear will never be a match for the tiger's strength, ferocity, speed and techniques. Its only trick is to rely on its size to scare the tiger. If it doesn't work, the bear must run for its life. But, speaking of size, a 230 - 250 kg tiger looks just as intimidating as a 400 - 450 kg brown bear, believe me or not.

Just a side note: In ancient times, China's kings had hobbies of big game hunting and pit fight, I have read a great deal on that. Brown bear was chosen as one of the pit fight and hunting candidate because of its sheer size. But the siberian, or Manchurin tigers, and the south China tigers too, have killed all the brown bears and other opponents in pit fights and have been observed to kill brown bears in the wild too, using a variety of techniques. One of the technique is so extraordinary that it has been studied extensively by martial art schools , most notably the Shaolin temple to improve their fighting techniques. Unfortunately, all of these documents are written in Asian languages, and as far as I know, none of them has been found in english. But anyway, todays we have found enough evidence on this matter to say for sure that tiger is the strongest of the Siberian forest. --S--

Anyone who thinks a tiger to be a match for an adult bear in a fight is totally neglectful of the size, power, and speed of the bear. Bears are much faster than given credit for. A 900 pound, typical adult brown bear is capable of beheading a moose with one paw swipe. The claws aren't as sharp as a cat's, but they are still very sharp, and can be as much as 5" long. The jaw power of a bear also greatly exceeds that of a tiger. Think of this too. Bears have layers of fat and muscle covering their vital organs. They are VERY difficult to kill compared to cats and other animals, even with powerful rifle cartridges. Tigers will prey on smaller bears or sick bears. They may occasionally take a bear by surprise, but on a head to head fight a bear will absolutely crush a tiger, quickly and horribly. I recently saw a show on PBS where scientists were tracking two male Siberian Tigers, and both were killed by bears. I say again, anyone putting a tiger above the brown bear is really lacking in understanding.

You really need to learn, those were probably very young and curious tigers.

Here are the statistics between tigers and brown bears.

Amur Tiger / Russian Brown Bear

Length: 9 - 11 ft / 6 - 10 ft

Record Length: 14ft / 11 1/2 ft

Weight: 160 - 306kg / 110 - 350kg, 200 - 420kg in winter

Record Weight: 465kg /500kg

Speed: 50 kmph /40kmph

Bite: 4000 - 6000 psi /1200 - 3000 psi

Length of teeth: 10cm /6cm

Lenght of claws: 15cm /13cm

A tiger will own a bear.

Hmm I would like to see the source on that. There is no way a tiger has more psi than a bear. That's like saying a wolf has more powerful jaws than a spotted Hyena. Not trying to start arguments, just want to see the source.

I think it everybody here agrees, that siberian tigers can killl brown bears, but bears are not one of their typical prey species, like deer or wild boars. I have no detailed reference, if they kill only young bears, or if only big tiger males can kill female bears or whatever.... Until no one has really good references, we should keep it like it is now. Siberian tigers occasionally kill brown bears. --Altaileopard 14:42, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Name change

The Siberian tiger is no more. It is now officially known as the Amur Tiger since it doesn't live solely in Siberia, with only a small part of its current range being in siberia. The reason for it being called the Amur tiger is that it the River Amur runs through its territory. Shouldn't this page be moved to Amur Tiger and a redirect from Siberian Tiger and to mention this in the introduction. --chris_huh 21:56, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

The Siberians tiger's range has never been solely in Siberia, but that never stopped it from being called the Siberian tiger. Not all terms are strictly taxonomical in definition. There is a PC movement to call the tiger an Amur Tiger, but this is (thankfully) not universally accepted. -12.144.227.129 17:08, 7 September 2006 (UTC)


um, the jaguar has the strongest jaws out of the cat family. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.194.254.229 (talk) 18:35, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Release from captivity

The article states that Siberian Tigers must be taught how to hunt when they are cubs. Actually, according to the National Geographic documentary "Tigers of the Snow" tigers bred in captivity and raised without a mother seem to have natural hunting instincts and they don't miss a beat when live prey is released into their area.


That still dosen't make them capable of surviving in the wild I'm afraid. Last I checked the number of re-introduced tigers are limited to a few test cases that only proved that it was prohibitively difficult to get them to hunt successfully in the wild. Certainly there are instincts at play, but that alone isn't enough to have them survive in the wild, which is why it's so critical to protect those that are in the wild.

-Amur_Tiger

[edit] Wisents, crocodiles and pandas

In the section diet, says that wisents, crocodiles and pandas are part of the siberian tiger's diet. But as i say, wisents, pandas and crocodiles didn't exists in Siberia in nowdays. Tigers and wisents only coexisted in Caucasus and Northwest Iran in historical times, and pandas are exclusives of China. Crocodiles, as i say, don't inhabitts the cold seas and rivers of Eastern Siberia.

== Crocodiles and Tigers only co exist in 1 place and that is the Northern Chinese-Korean Peninsula and i personally have only seen 1 such fight between a tiger and crocodile where this huge tiger well over 600lbs killed a young crocodile and dragged it over 30m before eating it. The indian tiger ocassionally kills crocodiles but Siberian tigers and crocodiles rarely ever come into contact and crocodiles are not a Siberian Tiger's normal diet.

[edit] DMZ

I read that while Tigers are rare in North and South Korea, there have been a number of citings in the DMZ, which is effectively the best protected National Park in the world. Just for people's interest. Sad mouse 22:31, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article title (Amur vs. Siberian)

This article seems to have been moved from Siberian Tiger to Amur Tiger recently, and with very little discussion. Is there some kind of evidence that "Amur Tiger" is the common name?—Nat Krause(Talk!) 06:51, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

The official name was changed a few years ago from Siberian to Amur. Siberian Tiger still redirects here but now the article name is more official Chris_huhtalk 13:32, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
Changed by whom? I would have thought Panthera tigris altaica was the official name.—Nat Krause(Talk!) 18:35, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
The IUCN and other organisations have started listing it as Amur Tiger, since Siberian Tiger was too misleading. Panthera tigris altaica is the official scientific name. Amur Tiger probably shouldnt be called the official name, sorry. But it is accepted by these major organisations as the main English name for it. The reason why is that it is found in the region of the Amur River, and not so much in Siberia. Chris_huhtalk 19:40, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
"The IUCN and other organizations..." What other organizations? You haven't provided a citation that the IUCN does so as official policy. Can you provide such a citation, and also one for each other such organization? Also, I'll point out that a Google search of the IUCN website reveals more hits for "Siberian tiger" than "Amur tiger." And "Siberian" is the overwhelmingly dominant common name used, and Wikipedia convention says to use common names. —Lowellian (reply) 20:09, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Misleading by whom? The name siberian tiger has been known for ages it has become the de facto name for this subspecies. It doesn't matter what it's called by a few people, for most, the siberian tiger is always the siberian tiger. We have grown to love that name throughout the years; it's now a fact of life. So the name siberian tiger on the article is perfectly accurate.

Siberia is a part of Russia, and northern Asia, right? The tiger was barely even found there, ever. But the region around the Amur River has always had these tigers. People will get to Amur Tiger from Siberian Tiger via a redirect but they will also realise that it is actually called the Amur tiger and not siberian. Surely wikipedia should have the most uptodate information, and not just call something what people called it many years ago for the sake of it. The subspecies is the Amur Tiger, not the Siberian, people are being taught that now as well. Chris_huhtalk 11:58, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
Without a longer discussion, this really needs to move back to Siberian Tiger. Wikipedia does not use official names, but the name something is most commonly known as (i.e. South Korea not Republic of Korea). Without significant argument here, I'll move it to the proper title in a few days. WilyD 14:46, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
It has been changed because that is it's name. When someone goes to Siberian Tiger they will be redirected to this (Amur Tiger) which will help to tell people that the subspecies is now being referred to as Amur. It doesn't make any sense changing it back to Siberian tiger since it is correct now. Chris_huhtalk 14:59, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
Unfortunately, that doesn't jive with the Wikipedia naming convention or normal english usage as a descriptive language. Adopting a name to change usage also contravenes WP:NPOV and is thus totally forbidden. WilyD 20:17, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. It should be Siberian Tiger, not Amur Tiger, per Wikipedia conventions. —Lowellian (reply) 19:58, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Lowellian you are right. When you go on the ICUN website there are more citations when you type in Siberian tiger than when you type in Amur tiiger. :) yay!

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.197.242.126 (talk • contribs) 22:16, 7 June 2007

[edit] Saving tigers

I love tigers!!

More needs to be done to save these tigers. Within the next 5 to 10 years, Siberian tigers will be extinct if they don't recieve more help. They are still being hunted and their habitat is shrinking. If nobody if going to try and help these tigers as best as possible, with the exception of zoos, all the wild tigers will be gone. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.191.129.201 (talk) 14:38, 6 February 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Physical Characteristics

Why was this description changed "The male Amur Tiger can weigh as much as 318 kilograms (700 lb), although in past years, scientists believed that these cats could weigh up to 350 kilograms (800 lb), a supposition based largely on the estimates of hunters. On average, a tigress weighs about 160 kilograms (350 lb), and a male weighs about 225 kilograms (500 lb). At these sizes, the Amur Tiger is the largest natural creature of the cat family, though not as large as the liger, a panthera hybrid generally only found in captivity. The largest captive Amur tiger was 3.7 metres (12 ft) long and weighed over 423 kilograms (932 lb), compared to the largest captive African lion that weighed 366 kilograms (806 lb). Apart from its size, the Amur Tiger is differentiated from other tiger subspecies by its paler fur and dark brown (rather than black) stripes." to the new one this old description was perfectly fine and quite interesting. TeePee-20.7 08:33, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The page needs protection

Due to recent vandalisms, extern links, categories and interwikis have disappeared. This page needs a semi-protection.

I agree entirely.83.187.226.129 08:24, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Further source on current numbers

The source I've provided reports it from the WWE and hence it only said so much, I let the line before my edit stay as well just to give the impression of a progressive watch on this species on the part of Wikipedia :p

Bioskope 11:50, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Size

We can dicuss a lot about maximum and average size of siberian tigers, but I am sick of dilettantes. which do edits like this one. Dubious internet sources like this site are not comparable to scientific books like Alan Turner: Big Cats and their fossil relatives, which was deleted in this edit. --Altaileopard 11:18, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Myths about Amur Tigers in Wikipedia

The Wikipedia article repeats old myths and exegerated claims about Amur Tigers and their weights that many modern scientists dispute.

I am going to post modern sources by leading scientists with photo scan.

First

1. First source is from Dale Miquelle's article "Living on the Edge: Tigers and the Northern Limit of Their Range" which can be found in the book Ultimate Guide: Tigers. And according to him the weights of OVER 50 (which is a very large number for tigers) Amur was similar to what has been found with Bengal Tigers. Click on the link above to verify

Second

According to Dale Miquelle, the average weights of the male Amur tigers in the project's study was less than 500 pounds and close to 400 pounds. These weights are a bit smaller than what has been found with the larger Bengal tigers, and very similar in size to African lions. Click on the link above to verify.

Third

This is from the book Tigers in the Snow, and according to Igor Nikolaev, which Dale Miquelle (who is also one of the world's leading experts) claimed "knows more about Amur Tigers than anyone alive" states, that he knows of no wild Amur tiger that has exceeded 650 pounds. The book which is backed by the world's leading experts on the Amur tiger claims that the Amur tiger is probably the lighter cat when compared to Nepal tigers. This is significant because the people saying this are some of the world's leading experts on Amur tigers.

Another leading tiger scientist, K. Ullas Karnath has written this in book "The Way of the Tiger" that tigers Siberia are about the same size of tigers from Nepal and Nagarahole.

Fourth

Amur Tiger, by David Prynn

This is from the book Amur Tiger, by David Prynn, and accoroding to it, the largest male Amur Tiger varifiable by the Siberian Tiger project since 1992 (in which as we already know over 50 animals were weighed ) was only 215kg, which is about average for a male Nepal or North Indian Tiger as the book also states. If the Siberian tiger did average 225kg or more as some claim, the largest in this study should not have been just 215kg. This data suggests, that Amur tigers do not grow as large as Bengal tigers. In 12 years, and over 50 animals, the largest tiger they could find was only 215kg. So its rather obviously that the average Amur tiger today is not 225kg.

Fifth

Last of the one horn Rhinoceros

This is from the book Last of the one horn Rhinoceros, and on this book it states weights of the two largest tigers captured Nepal which were both estimated to weight 600 pounds. It also states, that the largest tigers from Russia were not as big as these two giants from Nepal, and that tigers from Chitiwan are bigger than the ones from Siberia. So the largest Siberian captured in recent years was likely less than 600 pounds.

Sixth

list tiger mortality in Russia from 1970-1994

This is a list tiger mortality in Russia from 1970-1994, and while some were not in the best of shape, some were and quoted as fat (on fat index). Nevertheless, the largest male was only 194kg, which is well below what some people tend to think.

Compiling all of the averages, from modern sources, it seems that Siberian Tigers are smaller than Nepal and Nagarahole tigers. In fact the weights from these scientists is "very similar" African lions. Modern cats are not the giants they are made up to be and average is in the 400s range. I am not disputing the fact that Siberian tigers can weigh 600 pounds, but the average for modern cats is not 225kg.

Some of tigers

  • Another male mentioned on the book Tigers the Ultimate Guide which weighed 205kg. Dale described him as a powerful specimen.
  • There is the tiger named Dale (named after the scientist) and he was a male in good shape, yet he only weighed 182kg. I'll see if I can find more on him.

Considering al these modern data, you get an average of about 195kg which is slightly smaller than Bengal tigers, though still a bit larger than your typical lion. Nevertheless, its far below 225kg (495 lb) or 660 lb average claimed by Wikipedia

I put all this info and sources here so if anyone wants, they can verify and fix instead of regurgitating old exegerated myths.

At least the alternative views that I posted should be mentioned in the article, but it's not. The article only reflects old claims found widely in popular literature. The article says nothing about modern views or the dispute by some modern researchers. Cherck all the sources listed above 24.166.188.29 06:44, 27 August 2007 (UTC) ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

You called this topic "Myths about Amur Tigers in Wikipedia", but all your sources say, that the siberian is generally said to be the largest subspecies. Even highly scientific books like Mazak´s´"the tiger" come to the conclusion, that the siberian subspecies is larger. May be this is debatable and there are hinds, that they are just as large as bengal tigers, but we should reflect this in wikipedia exactly in that way. And actually: Do we talk about fattest or largest subspecies? A saturated, bulky "cattle killer" with full stomage may weigh much more, than a very large, but fit "game killer". You should probably concentrate more on body lenght or shoulder height....--Altaileopard 15:03, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Not only that you're failing to take into consideration the context of these findings and thus why these tiger experts aren't calling the Bengal the largest tigers out there. Siberian tigers for the most part face short life spans and extremely low prey densities of which both reduce the weights that they can attain neither of which are entirely natural conditions for them as human hunting and poaching activities do affect Siberians. Comparatively the Bengals are a much more disparate group where some reserves are decimated by poaching and hunting activities and face the all out loss of their tigers and others remain quite healthy depending on the nation and local conditions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.86.112.161 (talk) 21:32, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Mazak's 306 kg tiger

Mazak's used a circus Tiger from the Bouglione Menagerie - this would explain why his weights are not accepted by Nikolaev - who would be fully aware of Mazak's studies conducted years earlier. At present the 306 kg Tiger max provided by Mazak is highly questionable and rejected by Nikolaev (2000). 24.166.188.29 18:15, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] removed from article (original research)

A study of the carcasses of wild tigers from the Russian Far East, which had died of various causes, showed the heaviest to be a well fed male, about 4 years old, that weighed 193 kg. Location, physical status, size and circumstances of deaths of Amur tiger males in the Russian Far East, 1970-1994. But within this study, it is striking that almost all of of these tigers where killed after attacking domestic animals (a behaviour seldom seen in siberian tigers) and where evidently ill (Parotitis, injured paws, old bullet wounds). So most of them probably starved and where malnourished. Only two of them with given age where not obviously impaired and did not attack domestic livestock. They weighed 175kg and 170kg respectively. The third, which was probably not affected was 193 kg (pathology of paw bone) and was killed by another tiger. Hence the data of these study can not claim to be universal for weight of healthy, adult siberian tigers. Altaileopard

But the article lists Mazak's circus tiger (306 kg) as upper limit. That's not a normal wild tiger either. Mazak is used by many other sources to calculate 230 kg as average and even Wikipedia uses that average. If average is 230 kg, don't you think it's weird that the largest wild tiger that Siberian Tiger Project found (after weighing 50+ wild tigers) was 215 kg? 24.166.188.29 08:16, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
It doesn´t matter, what I think. There is only one thing that counts in wikipedia: sources! original research is inadmissible not baseless.--Altaileopard 15:52, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Releasing Tigers in the Wild

The article says

"The Hengdaohezi Feline Breeding Centre in the northern Heilongjiang province of China plans to release 620 Siberian tigers in 2007, after its numbers grew from eight to 750."

Even though the source is cited (BBC), I contacted Endi ZHANG, member, Scientific Committee of Endangered Species of China since 1999. And his reply was this: "Hi, I have called a couple of people, and no body thinks this is true. Where in wild to put these tigers? I guess this might due to the mis-translation from "hope to release" to "plan to release'."

This claim that China is planning to release 600 tigers is certainly dubious. 24.166.188.29 07:42, 13 September 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Void reference

I erased the following sentence and void reference to undefined refname "TIS", mostly because it was causing a glaring red warning in the References list, but also because it made no sense in context:

At least one authority suspects that this is the difference between real weights and hunter's estimates.<ref name="TIS" />

Best, Eliezg (talk) 08:02, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Instead of removing the reference, it would be better to check the page history to find what that reference originally referred to and then restore the reference. —Lowellian (reply) 13:23, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Amur tigers vs brown bears again

I add the following data (according to the given source):

"Scientists report about 12 incidents when tigers (mostly adults) were killed and eaten by brown bears. There is an opinion that the brown bear vs tiger conflict can eliminate the weakest animals from both populations."

The last opinion belongs to Russian scientist Kostoglod (the corresponding reference is not available online). Somebody trying to make a "correction": mostly old and traumatized tigers. Although old and traumatized tigers (as well as brown bears) have better chances to be killed, it's never mentioned that most of tigers were traumatized (and certainly old). This pseudo correction does not fit to the original source I have cited, so I will delete such an input whenever I find it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 158.64.77.152 (talk) 11:12, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

The extended version is the next one:

Seryodkin, I. V., J. M. Goodrich, A. V. Kostyrya, B. O. Schleyer, E. N. Smirnov, L. L. Kerley, and D. G. Miquelle. 2005. Relationship between tigers, brown bears, and Himalayan black bears. Pages 156-163 in Miquelle, D. G., E. N. Smirnov, and J. M. Goodrich, editors, Tigers of Sikhote-Alin Zapovednik: ecology and conservation. PSP, Vladivostok, Russia. 224 pp. (in Russian) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 158.64.77.152 (talk) 11:16, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Please, if you have a reference in English for this, please add it. Unfortunately the statement "There is an opinion..." doesn't tell the reader whose opinion it is, whether it is a valid or notable opinion, or where it can be verified. A cite in Russian may confirm what is said, but this isn't much good on a English language encyclopaedia. So it shouldn't be there until it can be cited properly. Thanks. --Escape Orbit (Talk) 16:03, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

The brown bear vs tiger conflict takes place in Russia, that's why the most reliable sources are in Russian. Either we have to exclude the entire story of relations or use this reliable source in Russian (PhD thesis of a WCS expert based upon known scientific studies) which adds the missed info. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.218.12.80 (talk) 17:48, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

A PhD Thesis is not a proper reference in my opinion.--Altaileopard (talk) 18:33, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

This thesis refers to the paper mentioned above (the dissertant was one of the authors, other coauthors are Miquelle, Goodrich - the leading well-known experts). Indeed, it's a reliable resource which shows the other way around happened as well. I am certain it has to be mentioned. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.218.12.80 (talk) 18:44, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

It has taken me a while to get a translated version of this source material. Suffice it to say, the way the data was presented here was not the way it reads. First off, the translation indicates that the interactions were not typically part of brown bear hunting behavior. Secondly, the wording omits the fact that the source states the tiger has come out ahead in over half of the observed interactions. Third, it doesn't really relate to tiger "diet" anyway. Fourth, to be honest, this source in Russian isn't sufficient anyway as it's not accessible to the vast majority of users here. There is data such as the Mathieson book or the Mazak book which are more accessible and have been properly cited. 149.79.35.227 (talk) 15:37, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

If you don't like this info, it's not a sufficient reason to exclude it. The data I put is a translation from the Russian source which is more reliable than Mathieson book. Bear’s intentional predation upon tigers is very rare, but it was also reported (anyway I didn’t mention it here). It seems you never read scientific papers. References aren’t required to be necessarily in English. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.218.12.114 (talk) 18:12, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I got the material translated. References are actually expected to be in English though, and as I said before, this reference wasn't saying what you purported to claim before. We don't need an interspecies relations section as it merely creates a sandbox for users who obsess over the "animal fights." The reference is not more reliable than the Mathieson book, and anyway, this article is about tiger/bear interaction from the tiger perspective, about which there is already enough information without your added source. While it isn't appropriate because of the language issue, it otherwise makes more sense on the brown bear page, which is why I haven't removed it from there yet. 149.79.35.227 (talk) 20:57, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I have created a new subsection “Interspecies relations”. Now it’s a proper place to talk about tigers vs brown bears and tigers vs wolves. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Happy Naturalist (talk • contribs) 19:36, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

"... this article is about tiger/bear interaction from the tiger perspective, about which there is already enough information without your added source. "

Does it make any sense: "from the tiger perspective"? What did you want to say? Are you a tiger?

The tiger vs brown interspecies relations consists of the list of reported encounters which includes some number of bears killed by tigers and the other way around as well. I don't see any reason to exclude the second part of this list from the Siberian tiger article.

You're not a native Russian speaker (you said "It has taken me a while to get a translated version"), however, you try to doubt my translation. What is written now is exactly the part of text. I will put it back anyway.

[edit] Taxon cat ?

Quoting the article: "It is considered to be the largest of the six tiger subspecies and the largest taxon cat in the world."

I think this is meant to say "cat taxon" but I'm not certain so I'm not changing it. Wanderer57 (talk) 01:17, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] 3RR

Hi all. I've noticed that there appears to be some revert warring going on today. Please settle things on the talk page, rather than violating WP:3RR. Thank you. --Bfigura (talk) 20:24, 6 May 2008 (UTC)


I am sorry to violate this rule. I will refrain from such an action in future.

The problem is that a group of biased users is trying to extract some info from the Siberian tiger section, although they are unable to dispute it. The version of article, which they intend to leave, besides missed data, contains also certain obvious errors. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Happy Naturalist (talk • contribs) 18:33, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

    • Were is the "Revert Warring"????, and "please settle things on the talk page", who do you think you are? Go annoy some other talk page, Thanks

CheersCheetahKeeper (talk) 11:53, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] In a tiger attack on a human, the human's personal story is not relevant

Consider the following passage:

In an incident at the San Francisco Zoo on 25 December 2007, a Siberian tiger named Tatiana escaped and killed one visitor, injuring two others. The animal was shot dead by the police. Investigators believe the three visitors, whose blood tests showed they had consumed illegal drugs and sufficient alcohol to be above the legal driving limit, had climbed onto the rail by the animal's enclosure and provoked it with taunts and projectiles.[24] Whether the tiger was provoked with projectiles is very much in dispute. Recent reports say police did not find any evidence that the tiger had been provoked by the use of projectiles.[25]

This little passage causes some problems here.

First, it's included in a section about attacks on humans by Siberian tigers in the wild. So it's misleading because it will lead readers to assume that this incident tells us something about the man-eating tendencies of Siberian tigers.

Second, there is the question of relevance. That a Siberian tiger apparently climbed up a wall (which was 12.5 feet high, according to other references) and attacked a human being is probably relevant. But what is the relevance, to an encyclopedic entry on the Siberian tiger, of drug or alcohol allegations directed towards human beings, or exactly how they they taunted the tiger? In what way does this provide the reader with any information about Siberian tigers? I am sure each human attacked by any animal (tiger, lion, elephant, snake, etc.) has his own unique story, and that story will rarely give us any insight into the animal itself. The only useful point I see in this incident is that a captive Siberion tiger, when provoked, could scale up a 12.5-foot wall and attack human beings. This tells us only how far up the animal can climb, and that's about it.

So I propose that we replace this passage with something like this:

In one incident a captive (not wild) Siberian tiger, when provoked by humans, scaled a 12.5-foot wall and attacked the provokers.

Rahul (talk) 21:52, 3 June 2008 (UTC)