Posted by on 23rd July, 2016.
While in their formative years, tigers are dependent on their mothers for survival and preying, usually by the end of 17-24 months they take a step forward. Young tigers begin to roam around freely and search for their own prey, to feed themselves. Males weigh more than females, with a difference of about 30 pounds, are more capable and thus travel further distances than the female counterparts. Until the young ones gain enough strength to build their own territory away from their mother’s homes, they settle only marginally away and wait until about 5 years of age, by which time they develop their muscles. Females take a little longer to establish their own territory.
A male lives marginally in the territory of another male till he feels strong enough to challenge him and overtake his territory. To avoid any challenge, the male will look for a place uninhabited by any other males. Young tigers mark their territories by leaving behind bodily secretions and claw marks as trails. This acts as their individual marker of identity. Scent markings of this manner allow other tigers to pick up the information of another’s identity.
Male tigers are more intolerant of other males in their territories than females are of other females. Tigers in general are not competitive or territorial in nature. Their inter-personal relationships are quite complex; sometimes competing with each other and sometimes sharing their procures. Males exert their superiority over others by intimidating, rather than getting violent. Several incidents showed the subordinate tiger accepting defeat by rolling on his back and showing its belly in a submissive posture. Once the tiger establishes its dominance in an area, he may tolerate a subordinate within his range, as long as they do not live in close quarters. The most aggressive disputes between two males occur when a female is in oestrus and usually the fight ends when either one of the males loses their life and not before that.
Young tigers are agile and in search to mark their own territories. They fight if they have to, in order to gain their dominance. One might say they are not all that different from a man in behavior.