Big Cat vs Pachyderm

[brobear]

Lions are brave but not stupid: 
                                               

[OldGreenGrolar]

Even a pride of lions avoid a hughe white rhino.

[brobear]

There have been several stories posted in "other blog sites" taken from Indian News concerning tiger predation on adult rhinoceros cows. I view these stories as interesting. I neither accept them as fact nor deny their authenticity.

If these news stories are factual, then I would wish to know all of the details. How can a Bengal tiger ( from 450 to 550 pounds ) kill a Great Indian rhinoceros cow normally weighing in excess of 3,000 pounds. She has very tough thick skin and she is a fighter.

It has also been suggested that perhaps National Park authorities were simply covering-up some poacher incidents by placing the blame of rhino deaths on the big cats. However, as with the predation stories, I neither believe nor disbelieve this explanation.

[brobear]

I have noticed, quite often, paleo-artists enjoy drawing and painting pictures depicting a big cat attacking a rhinoceros or a mammoth. ( IMO ), this is straying from reality.
Tough prey:
A little pride of Eurasian cave lions ( Panthera leo spelaea ) are trying to bring down a young,yet robust woolly rhino ( Coelodonta antiquitatis ).
by Mehdi Nikbakhsh 
                                 

[brobear]

Biggest Land-Based Mammals:

[OldGreenGrolar]

Reply 540. Every wild animal has a certain in degree of cautoon.

[brobear]

OK, this has got to be some Indian humor - Leopard Killed In Fierce Fight With Elephant In Bengal's Jalpaiguri.

www.ndtv.com/india-news/leopard-killed-in-fierce-fight-with-elephant-in-west-bengals-jalpaiguri-2740656

The carcass of the full-grown leopard was found on the banks of Jaldhaka river in Gadeyakuti forest beat area on Monday morning, they said.
 
Jalpaiguri (West Bengal): A leopard was suspected to be killed in a fierce fight with an elephant in a forest in West Bengal's Jalpaiguri district, officials said.
The carcass of the full-grown leopard was found on the banks of Jaldhaka river in Gadeyakuti forest beat area on Monday morning, they said.

The carcass was spotted by forest officials during patrolling, said the Range Officer of Gairkata Rajkumar Pal.

Elephant pugmarks were found on the carcass and the area around it, he said, adding that it is suspected that the leopard was killed in a fierce fight with a tusker.

The carcass has been sent for post-mortem to ascertain the exact cause of the death, Mr Pal said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.) 
 
*Note: neither a lion nor a tiger can take-on a tusker elephant in a fight. Whoever this so-called 'jungle-detective' is who believes himself able to read track-marks on the ground is fooling himself, but not me. Also, this wanna-be Tarzan has absolutely no knowledge of wild animals. Just try to imagine a 100-pound leopard, which is hard-wired to be an ambush predator, standing his ground against a full-grown bull elephant. 

[brobear]

‘Functional shifting’ and mechanism of tiger-predation on the Indian Rhinoceros

www.researchgate.net/publication/200543475_%27Functional_shifting%27_and_mechanism_of_tiger-predation_on_the_Indian_Rhinoceros

In West Bengal, approximately 6 rhinos were reported to die annually due to tiger attacks during early 1970s as per the census report of March, 1972- 2 (mother and calf) in 1952 in Gorumara; 1 calf in 1968 in north Bengal outside reserve; 1 calf each in Jaldapara in 1974, 1981, 1991 and 1995. The last one was about 2.5-3 years old. It was killed and eaten by a tiger on 3.3.1995. One female calf was killed by tiger in Gorumara in 1994-95, but now there is no tiger in this Park. On 18.1.1997 a female calf was found dead due to tiger attack in Jaldapara. On 27.10.2004 a female rhino calf of about 5 months’ old, length 115 cm., height 76 cm., was found dead at Jaldapara, suspected to be killed by a tiger. Nail injuries on the scapula and hip region of the victim were marked. The carcass was almost eaten up by the predator. The thorasic and abdominal cavity were found open. The vertebrae (lumber region) was fractured. In Orang National Park two carcasses of a mother rhino and her 3 month’s old calf were found in the Agaratoli range at the end of April, 2008. The mother had a bullet mark on its head, while the calf is said to have been killed by a tiger, which had feasted on more than half of the carcass of the calf. The tiger, which was supposed to be predator of the rhino calf, was found to move around in the vicinity. The probability of a calf-predator encounter is more at the waterbody. The chances of predation may be lower when the calf stays in one fixed and more-or-less secured place. In 2007, a second round of intense monsoon rains flooded Kaziranga causing the wildlife to search for higher ground outside the park’s boundaries. When this migration occurs, the animals are at great risk of attack by the tiger, inflicting injury and even leading to death. The young and weak faces increased danger along with other distressed animals like hazards like falling in sanitary ditches or tea plantation canals and collision with the speeding vehicles. A week-old rhino calf was found lying on the Assam state highway, struggling for his life after being attacked by a tiger. This rhino was physically rescued by the State Minister Rukib Al-Hussain, who happened to be driving by. The calf was immediately taken to the IFAW – WTI Center for Wildlife Rehabilitation and Conservation (CWRC) in Kaziranga with hopes of stabilizing the agonizing calf. This was the first rhino to be treated in the center after more than two years when intense floods in 2004 resulted in the rescue of 2 orphaned rhino calves later successfully hand-raised and rehabilitated at the CWRC before being relocated during last January to Manas National Park. Unfortunately, the last rescued rhino calf succumbed to its injuries shortly after arriving to the center. Its sad and untimely death is a bitter reminder of how vulnerable wildlife is when floods arrive.

In another case, a rhino calf was rescued by the forest guards of the Kaziranga National Park after its mother was shot dead by poachers a fortnight ago. The forest guards had launched a massive hunt for the calf after its mother was shot dead at Hatikhuli tea estate near Kaziranga on September 15, 2007 night when she had moved out of her habitat to escape the rising flood waters. They found the carcass five days later at a distance of about a kilometre from the place where its mother had been killed. The calf had taken shelter in a ditch. The guards managed to locate it by mimicking its mother. In fact, the calf was suckling when the poachers shot the mother rhino. Milk was oozing out of the rhino’s nipples when the staff found the carcass. The one-and-a-half year-old female calf had seen her mother being killed in front of her eyes. And she also had to survive for nearly three days in the wild all alone. She was fortunate that she was not noticed and devoured by any predator by this time. When located, she was in a state of trauma. Tigers killed 20 rhinos at Kaziranga in 2007, while upto March 2008 eight rhinos have fallen prey to the big cats. In a recent case, a rare incidence of tiger predation was taken place in Kaziranga, when a family group of tigers jointly hunted an adult rhino. Three tigers, probably a mother and her two grown cubs, attacked an adult rhino near the East Haldhibari anti-poaching camp in the Kohora range of the park. It must have taken several hours for the tigers to nail the rhino down. On inspection, the entire area looked like a war zone with crushed grass and plants. Unfortunately, the helpless rhino had probably given up when it got stuck deep into the sticky mud in a nearby water body and trapped to surrender ultimately. On 26 February 2008, a pregnant rhino was killed by the tigers at Rutikhowa beel under Bagori range. The female rhinos generally venture out of the park along with their calves at night to escape from tiger attacks. There has been an increase in tiger population in this park, which could be another reason for increasing number of attacks on the rhinos. It was reported by Eric Dinerstein that in Royal Chitwan National Park, Nepal, predation by the tiger accounted for 4 out of 7 calf mortalities, and all 7 calves that died during 1984-88 were <8 months old. Earlier Seidensticker (1976) recorded tiger predation on a calf of the Indian rhinoceros in this area. In contrast, the leopard did not prey upon the rhino calves.

Here is a story of the struggle for survival of a rescued rhino calf after the onslaught by a tiger at Jaldapara. On 8.1.2002 at about 8 p.m. during the monitoring of the habitat on the elephant back, the patrolling staff detected an injured rhino calf of about 4 month’s age, lying in a 12-14’ bush in the middle of the Torsa river. It was still then alive. The river banks were full of the sounds of trumpeting by elephant herd and fighting among the rhinoceros. The prowling tiger in the vicinity took the chance to attack the calf left behind by the mother but could not get the chance to finish his kill due to disturbances in the surrounding and approaching of the patrolling party. The body of the calf was smeared with blood all over. The predator had consumed a big lump of flesh from the hip joint of its left front foot. It could not walk. The soil was soaked with the gushing blood. The mother was also present in the vicinity. Hence, the injured baby could not be operated for treatment at night. On 9th morning, the baby was treated after her mother was driven to a distant place of about 2 km and the area was cordoned by the departmental elephants. The baby was monitored during next two days, but it had become very weak without any milk for the last few days. Maggots were found inside the deep wound. On 12.1.2002, it was again operated upon but could not be hand-fed. During 13-17th January, it was being monitored constantly. On 18th, it was observed that the mother did not feed her baby. Hence, its condition was very serious. There was no other alternative but to carry it to the nearest Malangi beat office compound where it was given saline, lactogen, cerelac, injection and other medicines. Regular treatment by the vet of Jaldapara was continued upto July. By then it almost recovered and considered fit for release in the wild.

In the whole distributional range of the Royal Bengal tiger and the Great Indian One-horned rhinoceros, predation is assessed to be comparatively highest in Kaziranga and the incidents are much rare in other protected areas harbouring both the rhinos and the tigers

[brobear]

Final Farewell : Herd Of Elephants Gather To Pay Last Respects To Their Dying Leader

t7news24.info/final-farewell-herd-of-elephants-gather-to-pay-last-respects-to-their-dying-leader/

It is known that elephants are one of closest creatures to humans in feelings, writes thepetneeds

The video below, that took place near the Kalawewa reserve in Sri Lanka, shows a herd of elephants gathering to pay last respect to their dead leader!

You can see in the video below some elephants trying to cuddle their leader, that was murdered by a rival, with their trunks! The witnesses claimed that they saw almost 300 elephants gathering to say goodbye to the dead one!

A study from Oxford University in 2006 found that elephants, unlike humans, mourn over the death of their family or friends! They also try to help the dying and sick ones hoping they can be back healthy! How heartbreaking! 
 

[brobear]

Tiger either ambushed and killed this adolescent sub-adult male elephant or found the carcass. 

[brobear]

More to the story above... Tigers hunt down calf, young elephant

www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-kerala/tigers-hunt-down-calf-young-elephant/article4579517.ece

The elephant was a juvenile tusker around 6.5 - 7 years old.

Here's the report referring to the account (pictures) I posted:

"Tigers have hunted down two elephants, including a young one, last month in Kerala forests."

"The killing of the young elephant at Sairandhri in the Silent Valley National Park has caught the wildlife experts by surprise as tigers are known to target mostly cubs. The nearly seven-year-old tusker was hunted down by the tiger near the trek path that runs through the forest area."

"The ill-fated elephant had charged at two forest officials inside the forest on the eve of its death. A few researchers and forest officials had reported hearing loud cries of the animal and roaring of the tiger in early hours of March 27. The body of the animal was found on the trek path the next morning, said M. Joshil, Assistant Wildlife Warden of the park."

"Signs of battle between the two animals were visible at the site where the carcass was found. Pug marks of the tiger were also spotted at the site. The elephant had suffered big wounds on the hind limbs indicating that it was attacked from behind, he said."