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Acquisition of Vacated Home Ranges by Tigers


Affiliations
1 Wildlife Institute of India, Post Box # 18, Dehradun 248 001 and Amity Institute of Forestry and Wildlife, Amity University, Sector-125, Noida 201 303, India
2 Wildlife Institute of India, Post Box # 18, Dehradun 248 001, India
3 Wildlife Institute of India, Post Box # 18, Dehradun 248 001 and Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History, Coimbatore 641 108, India
4 School of Natural Resources and the Environment, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721, United States
 

Understanding the social organization and acquisition of potential home ranges in solitary polygamous mammals is important for their management and conservation. However, such information requires a continuous long-term study. Therefore, limited information is available for mammals from South Asia. We studied the western most distributed Bengal tiger (Panthera tigris) population of Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve (RTR), Rajasthan, India, intensively during 2005–2011 using direct observation and intensive camera trapping-based methods. We examined how the home ranges of deceased tigers would be filled. Nine home ranges of tigers were vacated (two males and seven females) because of death, translocation, emigration and dispersal. Vacated female home ranges were filled by neighbouring tigers; 57% of neighbouring females were related to each other and after females vacated their ranges, their daughters acquired these home ranges. Mother tigers shared their home ranges with their daughters to increase the reproductive success of the latter. The home range of adult male tiger (TM-02) was estimated to be 73 sq. km using camera traps. Vacated male home ranges were filled by four transient individuals that were not related to each other. These data help understand the social organization and land tenure system of tigers in semi-arid habitats of India.
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  • Acquisition of Vacated Home Ranges by Tigers

Abstract Views: 336  |  PDF Views: 117

Authors

Randeep Singh
Wildlife Institute of India, Post Box # 18, Dehradun 248 001 and Amity Institute of Forestry and Wildlife, Amity University, Sector-125, Noida 201 303, India
Puneet Pandey
Wildlife Institute of India, Post Box # 18, Dehradun 248 001 and Amity Institute of Forestry and Wildlife, Amity University, Sector-125, Noida 201 303, India
Qamar Qureshi
Wildlife Institute of India, Post Box # 18, Dehradun 248 001, India
Kalyanasundaram Sankar
Wildlife Institute of India, Post Box # 18, Dehradun 248 001 and Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History, Coimbatore 641 108, India
Paul R. Krausman
School of Natural Resources and the Environment, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721, United States
Surendra Prakash Goyal
Wildlife Institute of India, Post Box # 18, Dehradun 248 001, India

Abstract


Understanding the social organization and acquisition of potential home ranges in solitary polygamous mammals is important for their management and conservation. However, such information requires a continuous long-term study. Therefore, limited information is available for mammals from South Asia. We studied the western most distributed Bengal tiger (Panthera tigris) population of Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve (RTR), Rajasthan, India, intensively during 2005–2011 using direct observation and intensive camera trapping-based methods. We examined how the home ranges of deceased tigers would be filled. Nine home ranges of tigers were vacated (two males and seven females) because of death, translocation, emigration and dispersal. Vacated female home ranges were filled by neighbouring tigers; 57% of neighbouring females were related to each other and after females vacated their ranges, their daughters acquired these home ranges. Mother tigers shared their home ranges with their daughters to increase the reproductive success of the latter. The home range of adult male tiger (TM-02) was estimated to be 73 sq. km using camera traps. Vacated male home ranges were filled by four transient individuals that were not related to each other. These data help understand the social organization and land tenure system of tigers in semi-arid habitats of India.


DOI: https://doi.org/10.18520/cs%2Fv119%2Fi9%2F1549-1554