Zoopedia Mistake Siberian Bengal Tigers
- Thread starter eexxee
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Although Siberian Tigers attain a large size in captivity their size in the wild seems to actually be getting smaller. Some male Bengal tigers in scattered parts of India are humongous. It’s actually getting very debatable what is the largest now as inbreeding and a lower food supply is having a effect on the Siberian.
Although not around anymore this tiger named B2 was close to 700 pounds.
Although not around anymore this tiger named B2 was close to 700 pounds.
There are indeed very large bengal tigers out there but this is about averages. In the past the siberian tiger was thought to be a lot larger, which was recently contested and debunked. Instead, the two indeed have very similar averages but siberian tigers are still slightly larger. It's just the exaggerated difference isn't accepted anymore. There are bengal tiger populations that are half the size of some others, so it is quite varied. That makes them on average slightly smaller.
Yes that is true the Siberian tiger averages 475 in the wild with 389 lbs being common. The Bengal Tiger is 441 to 575 depending on location. Important to note this is male sizes only. The southern population of Bengal tigers does bring down the average weight tho like you said. My point mainly was just to dispute the stereotype of huge wild Siberian tigers. Although huge in captivity the wild size has been in decline since the seventies.
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Yes, they are of similar size but in the linked thread you mention you are referencing total length not weight.
Not quite right, but not entirely wrong either.
Siberian tiger sizes were never a myth to begin with, so they can be debunked. The 20th century data was also properly taken. Wild Siberian tigers indeed weighed significantly more than Bengal tigers 40-50 years ago. However nowadays their averages are quite similar, even with Bengals having a slight edge. The reason to that is very simple. Extirpation of Siberian tigers and their prey in the wild, habitat loss and the resulting reintroduction efforts. When a certain species is attempted to be reintroduced, its prey items and habitat restored or simply protected at the brink of extinction again due to these three reasons (without reintroduction attempts), the population that tries to reestablish is often undersized and does not represent the original population in many ways for decades until/if the conservation attempts prove successful in restoring the habitat, prey and the species/population itself. Bengal tigers are the only relatively well established, even increasing population of tiger with more than 3,000 individuals (of the 4,000 something total global tiger population) compared to the 500 something Siberian tigers in the Russian far east. It is going to take at least several decades of successful conservation and habitat restoration for the Siberian tiger population to be as healthy and fit to reach its historic averages in size.
All this is why in captivity Siberian tigers grow significantly larger than Bengals, since there are no food limitations caused by human intervention of their natural habitat. With ample food in captivity they can grow to their maximum potential. Both Bengals and Siberians are fed and kept in ideally similar conditions and the difference shows how sad the current situation in the wild has become for the latter.
As I've mentioned before, this isn't anything new. Most reestablishing populations of animals show such differences in size, behavior and mortality rate. A good example to this is how the saltwater crocodile population in Australia proved to be well undersized (by at least 100 kg per length) when they were trying to reestablish during the 80's thanks to conservation efforts. Graham Webb and Manolis attributed this reduction in body size to the very reason of recovery process in the region.
That being said, Planet Zoo should use size data for properly fed animals. It is Planet Zoo, not Planet Let's Reestablish Ecosystems.