Tiger and Gaur Encounters

Indian jungles are the abode of mysterious animals but the tiger and the gaur also called the Indian bison belong to the megafauna group and are well known. Both the big cat and the gaur live in the same habitat i.e. dense forests interspersed with grasslands. The wild cattle is mountain animal and live in herds, but the herds move down to grasslands during summer whence water and coarse feed become scarce on the tabletops.   

This is the time when encounters between the Indian bison and the Bengal tiger take place often near the waterholes and the jungle pools.  During the stress of water is scarce, the big cat is hardly in the mood to hunt as I discovered a few years back. But huge male tigers kill the gaur for food and this happens often but is not a common occurrence since the bison are large and are able to protect themselves well.

Male Bull Bison weigh over 1000 kgs while the cows weigh around 700 kgs in comparison the male tigers weigh around 250 kgs. But the big cat is a perfect hunting machine that manages to overpower the herbivore and ends up consuming the meat. It takes the predator at least three days to finish the kill and leave. In the Indian jungles, tigers confront gaur very often but they kill only when hungry. 

Since the gaur lives in the herd and is fiercely protected by the leading cow or the bull the aggression discourages the big cat from going in for a frontal attack. When faced with the big cat the wild ox resorts to loud hissing and snorting to discourage the predator. 

By nature, the two animals are the exact opposite. While a gaur is a herbivore a coarse feeder it is timid by nature and rarely charges. Only disturbance or fear of being attacked makes the animal aggressive. The tigers on the other hand are aggressive by nature and meat-eaters. But all said and done the big cat kills only for food otherwise it ignores all animals that are not an existential threat.    

In the video above gaur can be seen feeding its young suckling in Kanha National Park in Central India. 

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Uday Freelances as Naturalist in Central India. He is an avid birder and tiger enthusiast. He blogs on tigers, wildlife, and birds. He also writes on the environment and conservation.

Uday also provides SEO Services and Website Content in English. He teaches Digital Marketing in Jabalpur in Summer Holidays.
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Contact: pateluday90@hotmail.com
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