Machli, the Ranthambore tigress who died today, had fought 14-foot-long crocodile :
Opinion
21/08/2016.
686.
All Members,
Respected family members of this great holy Nation.
Sub : Machli, the Ranthambore tigress who died today, had fought 14-foot-long crocodile
Ref : Tigress Machli's fierce bout with a 14-foot-long crocodile led to a loss of many of her canines.
Media Report - The Indian Express
VIDEO: https://youtu.be/J-bZc_bLVtk?t=5
Machli, the famous tigress from Ranthambore National Park of Rajasthan, died on Thursday after being critically ill for more than a week. Called the ‘Queen of Ranthambore’, the 19-year-old tigress was the longest surviving tigress in the wild, suggest reports. Forest officials were reported saying that Machli was barely eating or moving in the last few days and a team of veterinary doctors were monitoring her condition.
Park guides often recount the fierce bout with a 14-foot-long crocodile as one of the most remembered incidents about Machli. A video, that has been posted on YouTube, shows how ferocious Machli was during her prime years. In the video, Machli overpowers the massive crocodile using her heavily-built frame. Apart from twisting the crocodile, visuals show how Machli grabbed the aquatic reptile by her teeth causing major injuries to the back of its neck which ultimately led to its death.
Machli is also touted to be one of the most photographed big cats. Her popularity can be gauged by the presence of multiple Facebook pages dedicated to her. Tourists visiting the Ranthambore Park were mostly looking for a glimpse of the tigress.
According to IANS reports, Machli’s body has been taken for post mortem to the Ama Ghati check post after which it will be cremated. Field Director of Ranthambore, Y K Sahu spoke to IANS and said that the cremation would prevent the harvesting of body parts. During her lifetime, Machli had given birth to eleven tiger cubs, reported The Hindu.
Note :
1. After a century of decline, tiger numbers are on the rise. At least 3,890 tigers remain in the wild, but much more work is needed to protect this species that’s still vulnerable to extinction.
2. The largest of all the Asian big cats, tigers rely primarily on sight and sound rather than smell. They typically hunt alone and stalk prey. A tiger can consume up to 88 pounds of meat at one time. On average, tigers give birth to two or three cubs every two years. If all the cubs in one litter die, a second litter may be produced within five months.
3. Tigers generally gain independence at two years of age and attain sexual maturity at age three or four for females and at four or five years for males. Juvenile mortality is high however—about half of all cubs do not survive more than two years. Tigers have been known to reach the age of 26 years in the wild.
4. Males of the largest subspecies, the Amur (Siberian) tiger, may weigh up to 660 pounds. For males of the smallest subspecies—the Sumatran tiger—upper range is at around 310 pounds. Within each subspecies, males are heavier than females.
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5. Tigers are mostly solitary, apart from associations between mother and offspring. Individual tigers have a large territory, and the size is determined mostly by the availability of prey. Although individuals do not patrol their territories, they visit them over a period of days or weeks and mark their domain with urine and feces.
6. Across their range, tigers face unrelenting pressures from poaching, retaliatory killings and habitat loss. They are forced to compete for space with dense and often growing human populations.
7. PLACES :
Amur-Heilong, Eastern Himalayas, Borneo and Sumatra, Greater Mekong
8. HABITATS :
Forest Habitat
My view :
Questio : Why Tigers Matter ?
Answer : “Saving tigers is our test; if we pass, we get to keep the planet”.
1. igers are a symbol of all that is splendid, mystical and powerful about nature. The loss of tigers would inevitably mean the loss of cultural and spiritual values that connect humans to the wild world. There is a wealth of legend and lore connected with the tiger in Asian cultures. As David Quammen says:
2. ‘For as long as Homo sapiens have been sapient, alpha predators have kept us acutely aware of our membership within the human world. They have done it by reminding us that to them we’re just another flavor of meat’.
3. Ecologically speaking, loss of large cats such as tigers from their natural habitat has been seen to result in irreversible changes in natural ecosystems. Being at the top of the food web, the decline of large predators may lead to over-abundance of herbivores such as deer, which in turn has repercussions on tree regeneration and seed dispersal. Such effects reverberate through the food-web, causing long-term changes in natural flora and fauna, eventually leading to species losses. For instance, the absence of carnivores has led to over-population of white-tailed deer in Eastern United States, of blue bull in the Gangetic plains of northern India and agoutis in Barro Colorado Island, Panama.
4. Habitats where wild tigers live are high-value ecosystems that provide vital services to humans, such as carbon sequestration, hydrological balance, pollination services, protection from natural disasters and soil erosion, medicinal plant genetic diversity, and bio-prospecting. For instance, tourism values from tiger habitats run into billions of dollars today and contribute to the livelihoods of millions of people worldwide. Further, wildlife tourism is still highly under-valued–people are willing to pay many times more than they currently are, exhibiting the revenue-generating potential of natural habitats. It has also been demonstrated that lasting benefits from nature depend upon the maintenance of essential ecological processes and upon the diversity of life forms. By allowing tigers to go extinct, therefore, we would be depriving future generations of the benefits from natural diversity that have been the bedrock of human progress.
5. Many of the tiger landscapes exist in regions of high biodiversity. Thus actions to protect tigers in their natural habitats will automatically lead to global benefits for biological diversity. About 71% of the tiger landscapes lie in one of the designated 25 biodiversity hotspots of the world.
6. Finally, the tiger is an indicator of how human society is doing on the larger question of sustaining environmental quality in the face of ever-increasing demands on finite resources.
7. Tiger presence will be a barometer of the critical question: Are we making the right choices to sustain the planet?
8. Poaching and habitat loss and fragmentation have reduced the global population of the tiger to fewer than 3,500 and the pressures continue to mount. Under the current scenario, it is predicted that the tiger may well be extinct within the coming decade.
9. The loss of the tiger will have implications much larger than simply the loss of a charismatic animal species. Habitats where wild tigers live are high-value ecosystems that provide vital services to humans, such as carbon sequestration, recreational services, maintenance of hydrological balance, crop pollination, protection from natural disasters and soil erosion and preservation of genetic diversity of plants. As an instance, tourism values from tiger habitats, though still under-priced, run into billions of dollars today and contribute to the livelihoods of millions of people worldwide.
10. The decline of large predators that sit at the top of the food web inevitably leads to over-abundance of herbivores such as deer, which in turn has repercussions on tree regeneration. Such imbalances reverberate through the food web, causing species losses from fragile habitats. It has been amply demonstrated that lasting benefits from nature depend upon the maintenance of essential ecological processes and upon the diversity of life forms. By allowing tigers to go extinct, we would essentially be depriving future generations of the benefits from biodiversity that have been the bedrock of human progress. Above all, the loss of the tiger would take away the national impetus for saving natural diverse landscapes with intact ecological and evolutionary processes. Today, as an effective umbrella species, the tiger has become a powerful symbol of our ability to conserve wild nature.
11. The task of saving tigers and their natural habitats is a challenging one. Poaching of tigers continues unabated due to the weak institutional capacity for wildlife-law enforcement in most tiger range countries and the burgeoning global demand for tiger parts. Lack of scientific capacity for wildlife monitoring and management leads to further habitat deterioration in the face of changing and varied threats. Tiger landscapes continue to be fragmented and reduced by the day due to rapid infrastructural and industrial expansion and land-use change from forests to plantations and other human activities. In many cases, such habitat loss takes place far away from the public eye due to poor information flows and lack of communication. Over-exploitation of forest resources by dependent communities, who live well below the poverty line, contributes to the degradation of tiger habitat. Above all, policy makers generally remain unaware of the immense economic value of living tigers and their natural habitats (both realized and potential) leading to low prioritization of conservation objectives in national planning.
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JAIHIND.
Next with another Topic ....
Sumatran Tiger
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