quote:

Originally posted by Capt. Purvis:
Who were the two brothers from Arizona or New Mexico that were among the last jaguar hunters. They hunted with their hounds all throughout North and South America. I read an article about them two or three years ago in Shooting Sportsmen or Sporting Classic. If I remember correctly, they were hunting Jaguars in North America up until the 1980's.

Clark that would be Dale and Clell Lee They ran hounds and guided hundreds of hunters throghout mexico in the mid 1900S
The book is available through Hi lonesome books from Silvercity NM or pm me and I will loan you my copy.

A legal tiger hunt, depending on # available, would range from $2M to $5M. Easily.

quote:

Originally posted by BuffHunter63:
^
But Saeed, think of your commission!

I think a tiger skin is one of the most beautiful trophies in the world.

Although rare, there are areas with too many tigers, just as there are areas with too many elephants.

Proximity to humans and loss of habitat are the main reason for the decline of tigers.

BH63

I suggest that the main reason for the scarcity of tigers is POACHING to satisfy the Asian appetite for tiger parts and skins. These animals are so threatened that it is greedy and simply wrong to kill them for trophies.

The various governments involved do kill some periodically.

Making those hunts available for hunters who are willing to pay would be a win-win. Admittedly, they would be very short notice hunts (like a maneater in India that they decide is no longer relocatable) but getting the legal ok for that would seem doable. Price it high enough that it can do meaningful work for tiger conservation, and see.

I agree it’s unlikely that one could put together a sustainable sport quota right now, but it has worked in many places over the years. This suggestion would not hurt tiger numbers at all, as those animals are going to be killed anyhow. It would be rare, expensive, and likely low success rates, but so?

The BIG difference between Tigers and markhor is that one is virtually a solitary animal while the other is a herd animal.

The breeding frequency of a tiger is once in 3 years and the success of raising cubs to maturity is very low.

Markhor and goats on the other hand produce twins and breed every year. It is even possible that they breed every 6 months like domestic goats!

The shrinking habitat is just unbelievable. The human contact has gone up 1000% in the last 20 years.

Today it is so common to see a wild tiger in the major parks. This is not because of more animals but because of huge increase in tourists.

The tigers have lost all fear of people & vehicles now.

If we’re not careful this exact model is going to occur with many more game species, ones we can’t presently imagine being under threat and even consider pests at present. I’m seeing it with the fisheries too, in particular Chinook / King Salmon. We still have large runs on the North Coast, but they’re collapsing down south, it will find its way to us and Alaska. Then the very salmon dependent killer whales are collapsing in suit on the south coast, with no successful calves in years. They were a fixture of my youth on the ocean and such a regular sight they were boring- and I’m not old yet, this isn’t ancient history.

In a few decades I’ve witnessed more retreats and localized extinctions of species than any generation prior has. It’s agonizing to watch as a hunter, and human. We’ve got to do a better job preserving habitat, and hunting can certainly be a massive tool in that. But not with species as far towards the brink as tigers. I’d love to see hunters make a meaningful, non-hunting contribution to the preservation of species like Tiger and Jaguar, just for the love of them. I’ll contribute.

Hopefully our species learns to consume less, and preserve more. We as lovers of the wilds and wild things will be the first humans affected if we don’t change.

quote:

Originally posted by Angus Morrison:
If we’re not careful this exact model is going to occur with many more game species, ones we can’t presently imagine being under threat and even consider pests at present. I’m seeing it with the fisheries too, in particular Chinook / King Salmon. We still have large runs on the North Coast, but they’re collapsing down south, it will find its way to us and Alaska. Then the very salmon dependent killer whales are collapsing in suit on the south coast, with no successful calves in years. They were a fixture of my youth on the ocean and such a regular sight they were boring- and I’m not old yet, this isn’t ancient history.

In a few decades I’ve witnessed more retreats and localized extinctions of species than any generation prior has. It’s agonizing to watch as a hunter, and human. We’ve got to do a better job preserving habitat, and hunting can certainly be a massive tool in that. But not with species as far towards the brink as tigers. I’d love to see hunters make a meaningful, non-hunting contribution to the preservation of species like Tiger and Jaguar, just for the love of them. I’ll contribute.

Hopefully our species learns to consume less, and preserve more. We as lovers of the wilds and wild things will be the first humans affected if we don’t change.

I agree wholeheartedly with this. I have seen too much environmental destruction in my lifetime and I believe that we should all become better at helping to rescue what is left to us.

I guess from a scientific perspective, I disagree with you guys.

Overutilization (legal and not) and habitat loss are the cause of extinctions for game animals. If a hunting quota brings about a decrease in extralegal utilization and an increase in available habitat (which is what the hunting model does) then it will work. Certainly, the numbers will be very low (my suspicion is a sustainable quota for tiger would be under one a year worldwide AND would require targeting a specific animal, thus reducing success rates, perhaps to the point no one would be willing to pay the amount required) the arguments that it would not work because they are “too far on the brink already” has been disproven repeatedly with other species.

Whether the hunting market is strong enough to support the kind of prices needed to make it financially sustainable is a different matter, as are the politics of it. (With India’s population, how much to move folks out to create more habitat free from people... both political costs as well as financial.)

Hunting them would work. The question is, are both the hunters and the nation’s involved willing to pay the bill.

quote:

Originally posted by BuffHunter63:
I would guess that Thailand still has a few tigers left with in remote areas. And I would bet Laos and Myanmar also have some.

BH63

Maybe in the King's Forest near Chang Mai. They do have a few wild elephants there.

Doubt if you could import any tiger trophy . Even if you could the public up roar would dwarf the Cecile situation

quote:

Originally posted by Use Enough Gun:
No, not in today's social climate. Good luck if you could.

Dersu Uzala the Trapper

Great book and movie. Features tigers a good bit. The locals see them very spiritually and some financially. We all should strive to be like Dersu. Check out the book movie or both. Based on memoir of Russian explorer. Highly recommend

If there’s going to be a legal tiger hunt anywhere in the world, it will be in Texas.

There’s a very small self-sustaining wild population there along with a very small self-sustaining population of African lions.

There’s a larger Jaguar population in Mexico in the South West US then biologists seem to want to acknowledge. The last well publicized one was treed by Warner Glenn about 25 years ago. Since that time there have been at least 15 other documented Jaguar encounters but they seem to get suppressed in the media.

Tigers could thrive in Florida too if some conservation minded philanthropist wanted to establish a population there.

I always thought if I had a couple extra billion USD laying around, I would buy a Caribbean island. remove the human population (if any), stock it with cape buffalo and a few lions. I would then bring in some PHs, African trackers, and their families. Build a high class resort (walled off from the creatures of course), and charge rich people a bundle to fly in and hunt buff and lion on the weekends.

The families of the PHs and Tracker could staff the resort. Throw in a little offshore fishing, and you have a sportsmen paradise.

A separate tiger and guar section could be added later.

All I need is some investors. Any takers?

BH63

quote:

Originally posted by BuffHunter63:
I always thought if I had a couple extra billion USD laying around, I would buy a Caribbean island. remove the human population (if any), stock it with cape buffalo and a few lions. I would then bring in some PHs, African trackers, and their families. Build a high class resort (walled off from the creatures of course), and charge rich people a bundle to fly in and hunt buff and lion on the weekends.

The families of the PHs and Tracker could staff the resort. Throw in a little offshore fishing, and you have a sportsmen paradise.

A separate tiger and guar section could be added later.

All I need is some investors. Any takers?

BH63

It can be done much more cost effectively.
Tigers aren’t picky eaters so start with turning them loose and everything else will fall in to place.

^
Are you suggesting the tigers would take care of any locals? LOL

BH63

quote:

Originally posted by Angus Morrison:
I think personally Tigers and Jaguars need a break, they’re two of the most beautiful animals alive and by no means thriving, there is no such thing as an area with too much of either. As apex predators their population collapses faster than it builds when the going gets tough, and prey and habitat get sparse.

I wouldn’t be surprised if both are extinct in the true wild 100 years the rate we’re going. It’s spectacular that the Jaguar has a toe hold in the US again, but I’ve already read posts by people trying to be the first to kill one in the lower 48 in decades. That is the saddest part of our sport, we have to know when it’s appropriate and is a harvest, and when it’s destruction or we’ll sink our own ship.

I also think that if a hunter legally took a Tiger, it could be the end of travelling hunting as it absolutely would be the biggest hunting story in the media of the last century. Lastly, I sincerely mean it if I had a million of fun money to hunt an imaginary legal Tiger tag, I would spend it buying and fighting to protect their habitat and educate the public instead of killing one.

Believe me as an outfitter I understand the argument about hunting dollars being the fuel of conservation, but in this case they’re too far down the wrong path already due to humanity’s activities as a whole.

When the beautiful monsters are gone the mystery and intrigue dies with them. It’d be killing what people like us love.

100% spot on with my opinion as well.

Are there any living in the wild today? Is there any wild tiger habitat left? The only future for tiger hunting that I could picture would be a tiger hunt on a ranch and the tiger would be from a breeding farm or relocated and then bred.

Absolutely there are! But if we’re not careful there won’t be. Russia, India, Bangladesh, China, Nepal, Indonesia, others. But in all those only 3200 or so wild tigers remain, they’ve declined over 90% in the last hundred years.

Like grizzlys, tigers don’t play well with people.

Way too many people living near the remaining tiger habitat (exception may be Siberia).

There are more tigers in captivity than in the wild, per some estimates.

BH63

quote:

Originally posted by Angus Morrison:
Absolutely there are! But if we’re not careful there won’t be. Russia, India, Bangladesh, China, Nepal, Indonesia, others. But in all those only 3200 or so wild tigers remain, they’ve declined over 90% in the last hundred years.

Do you know of a way to stop humans from reproducing and reducing the human population?
Animals will probably end up either in zoos or used for hunting or food and clothing.

More important by far than the human population is all humans myself included learning to consume less and start viewing “development” with skepticism. The human population is going to peak, and begin declining this century at about 15-20% above today.

For those of us that love the wild and wild experiences in life it’s critical we learn how to preserve what we have, rather than looking only at the number of humans and economy. My grandparents version of living well was drastically different from ours for instance. Everything on earth is finite but the beauty of wildlife is it can be self sustaining and replenish itself. But it needs humans to be on board.

The subject of good environmental practice is nothing new.

Agreed but we’re not learning anything as a species or changing. For all the warnings and discussion we’re actually getting worse and mocking those who are worried as hippies or out of touch. Wild hunting will be one of the hardest hit aspects frankly.

quote:

Originally posted by Angus Morrison:
Agreed but we’re not learning anything as a species or changing. For all the warnings and discussion we’re actually getting worse and mocking those who are worried as hippies or out of touch. Wild hunting will be one of the hardest hit aspects frankly.

I am not mocking anyone but I believe people are using the subject of the quality of the environment to serve a political agenda.I also don't buy into a FAD.Instead I believe it is has been and will always be an important concern to all people.

I don’t see the human population voluntarily declining.

What is happening is that the human species is degrading since survival of the fittest no longer applies.

The most responsible and smartest people are having less children and the irresponsible and lower IQ people are having more.

Only war, a global natural disaster, pandemic disease and/or famine can ever return the human population back to a natural carrying capacity.

Then other large predators can make their comeback.

BH63

I have watched a 1950’s video of Fred Bear shooting an Indian Tiger with one of his recurve bows. He hunted from an elevated machan and the tiger was driven by a couple of dozen native Indian beaters. His host during his hunt was a matarajah who lived in a nearby palace. Fascinating stuff.

Cost notwithstanding I would say no. Years ago I would have said yes. I also don't quail here anymore for the same reason. I've gotten older + have no desire to kill a limited population. I would like to think that implies conservation.

Again, if you have too many tigers/jaguars/whatever in a limited habitat, they start branching out into areas where humans and their domesticated animals reside.

Then they start preying on goats, cattle, and children.

Absolutely no different than the issues people are having with wolves in Idaho.

Either problem animals are captured and relocated at great expense, or they are culled.

Maneating tigers and leopards are still a problem in some areas.

Fair chase hunting of them would be the ultimate adventure.

BH63

And when those issues with tigers and jaguars are due to the cats being forced out of their range because it has been so overrun with humans, agriculture, “development”, and their livestock, not because their numbers are too high, their habitat destroyed, what then?

We as hunters love wilderness and wildlife. If humans keep with the present program and we’ll lose both, locally culling a species in dramatic decline is a ridiculous solution compared to protecting and increasing habitat and wilderness. As hunters we bemoan the loss of previous ages of plentiful wilderness, but then some will advocate pushing a broken model of consumption until there is nothing left.

I have no idea how such a massive effort would be organized but I’d love to see hunters rally and form groups that cohesively protect wilderness all over the world, and not expressly for the ability to hunt it, but for love of the wilds. We’ve seen it small scale with Ducks Unlimited and it’s a beautiful thing. There’s a lot of money in hunting, imagine if 10% of every hunt went to buying, protecting, and improving habitat in places where there presently is no trophy hunting, like most of the tiger’s range.

Many here have expressed sentiments I hugely admire and respect, like NormanConquest’s thoughts on the quail locally. That’s conservation and a very admirable and mature viewpoint to see from a hunter. Those that would rush to be the last to kill something rare represent the worst of our sport and its death knell unfortunately.

Even in the most wild and protected wildernesses areas in the lower 48, grizzlies and black bears that attack people are killed.

I don’t know of any wilderness area that is totally off limits to humans. Even Kruger NP loses a few people and kill a few dangerous animals every year.

DU and Pheasants Forever and similar organizations have been effective mostly because those animals don’t kill livestock or people.

When too many tigers inhabit an area, the prey declines and then the tigers are forced to expand their range. Same thing happens with all large predators.

That is a fact of nature.

Unless people are willing to give up their land, then the tigers have to be killed or relocated.

It doesn’t matter how beautiful or how the world’s tiger population is faring.

BH63

We can do that until there’s nothing left indeed, and call it an era that’s closed. To me personally as someone passionate about the outdoors, wildlife, and hunting that would be an utter tragedy.

Grizzlies used to widely range half the lower 48 of the US and a good deal of Mexico. California for instance has the Grizzly on its flag and not a single one is left alive in the wild there. Texas’ last grizzly died in exactly the circumstances you illustrate in 1900, “Bears were considered the single biggest threat to a rancher’s livestock. The accepted practice of the day was to control their population with an annual hunt. Seventy-five-year-old Odie Finley of Liberty Hill, grandson of rancher C.O. Finley, describes the mentality of the day: “All they were doing was protecting their cattle. Bears were plentiful and hungry, and they spent their whole lives killing livestock. These old men were doing what they thought was the right thing to do with a predator. They weren’t doing it for fun.” the account (worth a read) goes on to describe the killing of the last known Grizzly Bear in Texas, which barely survived into the 20th century. This day will come for the tigers if things don’t change.

I hunt bears for a living and never, ever want to see it come to that where I live but realize with poor management it could. With excellent management and humans willing to use less resources, it could be a 100% renewable resource that only needs an intact ecosystem. Hunting of course can be fully sustainable and bring in funding for habitat and I’m in the business of it personally. But when an animal is on the brink advocating culling them further when friction occurs due to the pressure the population is under from humans, strikes me as broken circular logic. Reminds me of the classic adage “Beatings will continue until morale improves.” There are many (particularly select African animals, waterfowl, whitetail, and elk) that have greatly benefitted from good hunting practices there are far more through the past century that have suffered miserably. Tigers are one. I’d just like to see us try and protect habitat rather than get in on shooting the last of something, to be one of the last to do so. I fight tooth and nail to prevent development in the 2,100sq mile lease we operate in. I recently opposed mineral exploration by diamond drill rig in prime mountain goat habitat.

But we’ll always be fighting things like that or hydro electric proposals in salmon streams, or logging. Our appetites as humans for more resources need to slow or we’ll “develop” the wildlife right out of the wilderness. We’re blessed here there are no roads, and half our territory is a protected area / park. The other thousand or so square miles remains properly wild too, for now... business minded resource companies keep trying to get in more, as do loggers, commercial fishing... one day they will, and it won’t be to the benefit of the wildlife. Tigers are just a hundred miles further down a road I can see the end of, and it’s not somewhere a guy with my interests and love of wilderness wants to end up. Bit of a tangent forgive me.

Angus, my sentiments exactly. FWIW, I live in Liberty Hill + have for over 50 years. I would be interested in any info of Odie Finley as I have never heard the name although Huldy Mather was quite prominent + I know his great-grandson + his great-great-grandson went to school with mine. There was a painting hung up in the local bank of old Huldy. When he killed Comanches, he cut off their ears + strung them on his bridle reins. The Chapmans + Spiveys were also founding members of this community I would really like to hear what you have to say on this.Thank you in adavance.

quote:

Originally posted by Alec Torres:

quote:

Originally posted by BuffHunter63:
^
But Saeed, think of your commission!

I think a tiger skin is one of the most beautiful trophies in the world.

Although rare, there are areas with too many tigers, just as there are areas with too many elephants.

Proximity to humans and loss of habitat are the main reason for the decline of tigers.

BH63

I suggest that the main reason for the scarcity of tigers is POACHING to satisfy the Asian appetite for tiger parts and skins. These animals are so threatened that it is greedy and simply wrong to kill them for trophies.

I'd say it is human encroachment on the habitat. Even protected areas are subject to illegal grazing, subsistence crops, wood collecting, etc. That kind of pressure is not a recipe for success.

Poaching is the high profile, WWF donation generating side of equation. But population growth and resource pressure is the harder part to fix.

^
Habitat loss will always be the final nail in the coffin of species that are too dangerous to live in proximity to humans.

People are greedy.

BH63

My father shot 21 and my grand father 54 tigers and over 200 leopards between them and they were not PHs!



My father Rama with one of his 21 tigers! His favorite rifle was a 9x57 Oberndorf mauser and he shot most of his tigers and 48 leopards as well as Gaur, sloth bear, and tons of sambur, blue bull, cheetal, wild boar etc with it. He also used a double 375 H&H on tiger but said the 9mm had better performance!

Hunting in India was incredible, as kids we were fortunate to get a glimpse in to what it must have been like! Those were the days!


Arjun Reddy
Hunters Networks LLC
30 Ivy Hill Road
Brewster, NY 10509
Tel: +1 845 259 3628
2020, DSC booth # 2350
2020, SCI booth # 3167

^
Amazing childhood. I am currently reading a book “No Beast So Fierce” that combines the latest knowledge of tigers’ natural lives with the story of the Champawat Tiger that killed over 400 people in Nepal and India.

Great read for both the insights into the geopolitical aspects of tiger hunting and the making of a Mankiller.

BH63

Is that a M1911 Colt National Match in the belt?

Interestingly, a tiger’s natural lifespan in the wild is only 12 years.

When overcrowding occurs, it becomes much less due to fighting over territory, and mother tigers fighting male tigers to protect their cubs. (Male tigers, like lions, kill cubs that aren’t their own).

So killing excess male tigers could actually improve the overall health and numbers of a tiger population.

BH63

Quite the opposite unfortunately, one of the biggest challenges to long term survival with shrinking populations is inbreeding. Removing the competing genetics and diversity so fewer males exist certainly isn’t going to help the health of the population. What tigers need is management of habitat at this point, rather than population reduction.

And reddy375, would love to hear more, your father clearly lived an adventurous life.

When male tigers compete for the same female, the fights are violent, and in many cases, one or both males are killed, or injured so severely they cannot hunt and die of starvation.

Female tigers with cubs have been know to actually kill male tigers after breeding, if they believe their cubs to be in danger.

Male tigers will kill tiger cubs, if the cubs are not their offspring.

With all of these documented behaviors, inbreeding seems to be the least of tiger management worries.

Habit loss, coupled with too many tigers in a given area, is a recipe for disaster.

Sensible control of tiger numbers, though hunting or culling, is the only workable solution, unless more tiger habitat is made available.

I really have nothing more to say on this, but if anyone is really interested, they can do some serious research.

Letting personal emotion drive the management of wild animals has made the WWF a financial success, and has resulted in the decimation of elephants and rhinoceros in Kenya.

But everyone is entitle to their opinions and preferences.

BH63