The hunt

The tiger is a carnivore, which means that he has to hunt on prey to survive. Thanks to his muscular hind legs, his good eyes, his sharp sense of smell, his camouflage ... he can catch and kill his prey. His food consists of swine, deer, antelope and bovine animals. When these are absent from his territory, he eats smaller prey like rodents.

A tiger needs to eat about 5 kilograms of flesh a day. He needs this so he can digest it and in this way he can obtain nutrients. But when a tiger only needs 5 kg flesh a day and a swine weighs 100 kg, what does it do with the rest? The answer is simple: he hides it somewhere, so that scavengers won't find it and he eats the rest of it in the following days.

When the tiger has caught a prey, he will first eat the best pieces of it (like the beefs and the liver) because there's always a chance that scavengers find it and eat the rest.

The catch of the prey always follows the same ritual:

1. He approaches his prey downwind, so his prey won't smell him.
2. He sneaks towards it as close as possible.
3. When he is close enough, he runs to his prey.
4. He catches up his prey and jumps to its throat.
5. He bites the prey in the throat using his large teeth and strong jaw muscles.
6. He pulls it towards the ground.
7. He lets the animal suffocate by biting in its throat.

In spite of this technique he can only catch 1 out of 5 preys he attempts to catch.
Tigers murder only for food, for the rest of the time they are relatively safe, except when they have cubs. There are even known cases of tigers walking disinterestedly through the suburbs of a city.