India Indian Wildlife Thread

[Ryder]

coming across male lion like that @Ryder , yep time to NOPE the hell outta there lol

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1847771157933490406

Bro why are so many big cats roaming in Indian cities?

They are majestic creatures but also scary man.

I think abandoning the bike saved their asses. They would have panicked and fell down or by the time he turns the bike around its too late.

Asiatic Lion is one beauty of a cat.

 

[Nilgiri]

Bro why are so many big cats roaming in Indian cities?

They are majestic creatures but also scary man.

I think abandoning the bike saved their asses. They would have panicked and fell down or by the time he turns the bike around its too late.

Asiatic Lion is one beauty of a cat.

These are villages and maybe some small towns dotted around the Gir National Park (only place in world that has the Asian lion in their natural habitat). The cities are much further away.

Some cities yeah you are right that leopards are known to intrude or even exist to some degree being small enough (and that city area being more of a suburb or having a park/green area nearby etc rather than inner built up core etc).

But the big cats its more difficult for them, generally its human settlements of the smaller sizes nearer to their forest domains that they have some intersection with...especially where say cattle husbandry/grazing are vectors to try their luck on.

Lions have their established pride behaviour, so there is proclivity for lone males (without a pride to defend/rely on) to try their luck more away from the national park area itself.

Basically the national park is at its near full capacity now as to the lion population it holds from the success of the conservation effort there (along with the larger project tiger one too).....but at same time India human population has grown and has its economic activities wherever possible in competition with the natural forest.

The forest service (both the federal one and also the various state level ones) are some of the govt depts that are pretty well run overall (they have dedicated colleges, universities, great program + training, assured funding etc).... producing this success now that now needs outlet/replication to sustain at a higher capacity for the lion (to say get closer to total tiger population level first, and then see what to do after that w.r.t investments possible for more conservation as India urbanises more and maybe more villages/towns can be translocated from or converted to more natural habitat slowly with investment there)

You can get an idea of the issue with google street view, it's coverage has improved drastically in India lately (since I last checked anyway):

i.e the "bald spots" correspond pretty much to the natural habitats of India. Gir national park definitely sticks out as you zoom out...and at first zoom level you can see the circle of villages around the park that this footage came from somewhere. Junagadh, Amreli and Bhavnagar are really the first cities that appear as you zoom out.....and then you get the proper large sized cities as you zoom out further etc.

The last one I marked Kuno national park (another bald spot) where there is an effort to slowly introduce the asiatic lion there....again because of the investments made regarding the forestry services, training and protection required (compared to larger areas you see on the map). Kuno is where they have started introducing the cheetah too (slowly) so it makes sense to leverage those existing resouces invested for a potential lion project there too etc.

Anyway I figured I would type this up to some detail since google earth coverage of India surprised me just now and I can repost this elsewhere easily for similar folks I know interested in conservation in India heh.

 

[Ryder]

These are villages and maybe some small towns dotted around the Gir National Park (only place in world that has the Asian lion in their natural habitat). The cities are much further away.

Some cities yeah you are right that leopards are known to intrude or even exist to some degree being small enough (and that city area being more of a suburb or having a park/green area nearby etc rather than inner built up core etc).

But the big cats its more difficult for them, generally its human settlements of the smaller sizes nearer to their forest domains that they have some intersection with...especially where say cattle husbandry/grazing are vectors to try their luck on.

Lions have their established pride behaviour, so there is proclivity for lone males (without a pride to defend/rely on) to try their luck more away from the national park area itself.

Basically the national park is at its near full capacity now as to the lion population it holds from the success of the conservation effort there (along with the larger project tiger one too).....but at same time India human population has grown and has its economic activities wherever possible in competition with the natural forest.

The forest service (both the federal one and also the various state level ones) are some of the govt depts that are pretty well run overall (they have dedicated colleges, universities, great program + training, assured funding etc).... producing this success now that now needs outlet/replication to sustain at a higher capacity for the lion (to say get closer to total tiger population level first, and then see what to do after that w.r.t investments possible for more conservation as India urbanises more and maybe more villages/towns can be translocated from or converted to more natural habitat slowly with investment there)

You can get an idea of the issue with google street view, it's coverage has improved drastically in India lately (since I last checked anyway):

View attachment 71283

i.e the "bald spots" correspond pretty much to the natural habitats of India. Gir national park definitely sticks out as you zoom out...and at first zoom level you can see the circle of villages around the park that this footage came from somewhere. Junagadh, Amreli and Bhavnagar are really the first cities that appear as you zoom out.....and then you get the proper large sized cities as you zoom out further etc.

The last one I marked Kuno national park (another bald spot) where there is an effort to slowly introduce the asiatic lion there....again because of the investments made regarding the forestry services, training and protection required (compared to larger areas you see on the map). Kuno is where they have started introducing the cheetah too (slowly) so it makes sense to leverage those existing resouces invested for a potential lion project there too etc.

Anyway I figured I would type this up to some detail since google earth coverage of India surprised me just now and I can repost this elsewhere easily for similar folks I know interested in conservation in India heh.

Have the Bengal Tiger and Asiatic Lions ever interacted with each other?

Especially in the past?

 

[Nilgiri]

Have the Bengal Tiger and Asiatic Lions ever interacted with each other?

Especially in the past?

Presently there is too much of a distance gap between Gir and where closest Tigers reside (thicker forest areas of central India etc).

But in the past?

Most definitely, though I would imagine they probably didn't fight all that much ( different habitat preferences even with the same overlapping range - its kind of similar to how over here in north america, brown and black bears have different zones even when they overlap....though brown bears are wired differently and much larger generally so will dominate/chase off a black bear if they do come across each other, very large browns will hunt black bears as well.....i.e there is size factor in play compared to lions and tigers which are much closer to each other overall, and same reason lions and tigers will kill leopards if given the chance etc).

Also lion roar (announcing long distance), mane + pride making it very unlikely instance for even full sized male tiger (who will almost always be solitary) to naturally take up a fight with lion(s)...it's just not worth the risk to begin with.

Lions given pride size may have been able to mob and drive off a tiger from its catch....but this would largely be accomplished without a serious fight IMO (as they are peers).

i.e the general avoidance when clearly one is dominant + bigger seen from distance...and the scent markings and so on etc that would give reason for pause/caution especially if habitat environs is also changing from preferred one (Tigers prefer way denser forest, lions prefer light forest and more open habitat.....areas tigers are uncomfy with)

I actually got talking about this with family fairly recently, it is such an interesting subject.

A study in sympatry: New paper examines how Asiatic lions & Bengal tigers have co-existed for so long in the Subcontinent

It is something that wildlife afficiandos love to imagine: Lions and tigers, two of the biggest extant felids. Who is stronger? Who would win if they happen to

www.downtoearth.org.in

Lions, along with cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus venaticus), wolves (Canis lupus), hyenas (Hyaena hyaena), antelopes, wild ass (Equus hemionus) and aurochs (Bos primigenius) were likely the characteristic fauna of the more arid and open parts belonging to the Afrotropical biogeographical realm, a characteristic of the western part of the Indian subcontinent, according to Yadav.

The tigers, along with leopards, wild dogs, deer and gaur were common to dense forests, representing the Indo-Malayan realm.

 

[Nilgiri]

Forgot if I posted this to you before @Ryder , still one of the craziest videos I've seen out there:

The leopard was lucky the lion didnt seem all that interested in actually killing it and hesitated just enough. But just look how that lion was zoned in and the leopard was totally zoned out lol....one would think smaller cats would never take things easy.

Also the sheer size difference.

 

[Afif]

Bengal Tigers are incredibly efficient (almost cat like) and explosive.

Lions are better at group brawl. They just don't back down due to their pride.

 

[Ryder]

Forgot if I posted this to you before @Ryder , still one of the craziest videos I've seen out there:

The leopard was lucky the lion didnt seem all that interested in actually killing it and hesitated just enough. But just look how that lion was zoned in and the leopard was totally zoned out lol....one would think smaller cats would never take things easy.

Also the sheer size difference.

Leopards size really give it an edge when it comes to stealth.

As usual the Leopard will always have to give way to Lions and Tigers. Leopards just have no chance against their bigger cousins.

Whats interesting too was Indian Biologists working in the Himalayas actually set up cameras of animals moving past they recorded Indian Leopards and Snow Leopards passing through. Its interesting if they overlap with each other in certain places.

Its so true a lot of predators will only fight each other if its the last resort. Majority of the time they avoid each other because its not worth it because it will always lead to bloody battles and thr next day dead due to injury.

The titanic battles have always been exagerrated by humans because it entertains us or sparks our curiousity.

 

[Nilgiri]

looks like a juvenile @Ryder , definitely would have died up there of exposure if they didnt come across it.....wonder how it got up there to begin with. Only big male bears really dare to trek up that high here (brown bears....black bears here avoid altitudes).

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1860694308229165424