Bali tiger

Bali tiger, Samong
The hunting party of Baron Oscar Vojnich with a Balinese tiger, shot at Gunung Gondol, NW Bali, Nov. 1911

Extinct  (1938)  (IUCN 3.1)[1]
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Carnivora
Family: Felidae
Genus: Panthera
Species: Panthera tigris
Subspecies: † P. t. balica
Trinomial name
Panthera tigris balica
(Schwarz, 1912)
Range map

The Bali tiger (Panthera tigris balica), harimau Bali in Indonesian, or samong in Balinese,[2] is an extinct tiger subspecies that was native to the Indonesian island of Bali. It was the first tiger subspecies that became extinct in recent times.[1] It was one of three subspecies of tigers found in Indonesia, together with the Javan tiger, which is also extinct, and the Critically Endangered Sumatran tiger. It was the smallest of the tiger subspecies.

The last specimen definitely recorded was a female shot at Sumbar Kima, west Bali, on 27 September 1937. However, a few animals likely survived into the 1940s and possibly 1950s.[3] The subspecies became extinct because of habitat loss and hunting.[4] Given the small size of the island and limited forest cover, the original population could never have been large.

Characteristics

Bali tigers had short fur that was a deeper, darker orange and had fewer stripes than other tiger subspecies. Occasionally, between the stripes, were small black spots. Bali tigers also had unusual, bar-shaped patterns on their heads. The white fur on their underbellies often stood out more than that of the other tiger subspecies because of their darker-colored fur. The white fur also had a more distinct and curved line.

The Bali tiger was the smallest of all nine tiger subspecies, comparable to the leopard or cougar in size. The weight of a male was usually 90–100 kg (200–220 lb); that of a female was 65–80 kg (143–176 lb). The male was about 220–230 cm (87–91 in) in length (with tail), and the female 190–210 cm (75–83 in).[5]

Ecology

Bali tigers preyed on most mammals that lived within their habitat. Their major sources of food were wild boar, rusa deer, Indian muntjac, red junglefowl, monitor lizards, monkeys, and possibly banteng (the last now also extirpated on the island). The only known predators of Bali tigers were humans.

Reproduction

The samong had an average gestation period of 14–15 weeks. They gave birth to two or three cubs per litter. The average birth weight of a cub was two to three pounds. Cubs were born blind and helpless and were weaned around one year of age, becoming fully independent at 18 months to 2 years of age. Their lifespans were about eight to ten years long.

Relationship to the Javanese tiger

There are two common theories regarding the divergence of Balinese and Javan tigers: The first suggests that the two subspecies developed when Bali became isolated from Java by formation of the Bali Strait due to rising sea levels after the ice age. This split the tigers into two groups which then went on to develop independently. The second possibility is that the tigers swam from one island to colonize the other. The Bali Strait is only 2.4 km wide, making it well within the swimming ability of the average tiger.[6]

Documentation, hunting and tiger culture in Bali

In Balinese culture, the tiger has a special place in folk tales and traditional arts, as in the Kamasan paintings of the Klungkung kingdom. However, they were perceived as a destructive force and culling efforts were encouraged until extinction.

Very few reliable accounts of encounters and even fewer visual documentations remain. One of the most complete records was left by the Hungarian baron Oszkár Vojnich, who trapped, hunted, and took photos of a Balinese tiger. On 3 November 1911, he shot dead an adult specimen in the northwest region, between Gunung Gondol and Banyupoh River, documenting it in his book In The East Indian Archipelago.[7]

According to the same book, the preferred method of hunting tigers on the island was catching them with a large, heavy steel foot trap hidden under bait (goat or muntjak), and then killing them with a firearm at close range.

A final blow to the island's already low tiger population came during the Dutch colonial period, when shikari hunting trips were conducted by European sportsmen coming from Java, armed with high-powered rifles and a romantic but disastrous Victorian hunting mentality. Surabayan gunmaker E. Munaut is confirmed to have killed over 20 samong in only a few years.[7]

The last confirmed tiger sighting was of an adult female, killed on 27 September 1937, at Sumbar Kima, in western Bali. Since then, claims of sighting have been made, but without proof, mostly by forestry officers, in 1952, 1970 and 1972. Any remaining tigers were likely pushed to the western side of the island, mostly into an area that is now West Bali National Park, established in 1947.

The Balinese tiger was never captured alive on film or motion picture, or displayed in a public zoo, but a few skulls, skins and bones are preserved in museums. The British Museum in London has the largest collection, with two skins and three skulls; others include the Senckenberg Museum in Frankfurt, the Naturkunde Museum in Stuttgart, the Naturalis museum in Leiden and the Zoological Museum of Bogor, Indonesia, which owns the remnants of the last known Balinese tiger. In 1997, a skull emerged from the old collection of the Hungarian Natural History Museum and was scientifically studied and properly documented.[8]

Tigers had a well-defined position in folkloric beliefs and magic. For example, the Balinese considered the ground powder of tiger whiskers to be a potent and undetectable poison for one's foe.[9] According to the same book mentioning this, Miguel Covarrubias's Island Of The Gods, when a Balinese baby was born, he was given a protective amulet necklace with black coral and "a tiger's tooth or a piece of tiger bone".[10]

Like other Asian people, Balinese people are fond of wearing tiger parts as jewelry for status or spiritual reasons, such as power and protection. Necklaces of teeth and claws or male rings cabochoned with polished tiger tooth ivory still exist in everyday use. Since tigers have disappeared on both Bali and neighboring Java, old parts have been recycled, or leopard and sun bear body parts have been used instead. One of the traditional Balinese dances, the Barong, still preserves in one of its four forms a type called the Tiger Barong (Barong Macan).

Names

In Indonesia, the Bali tiger was called harimau bali, and samong in Balinese.[11]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Jackson, P. & Nowell, K. (2008). "Panthera tigris ssp. balica". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2015.2. International Union for Conservation of Nature.
  2. ↑ History Of The Indian Archipelago, volume II, John Crawfurd, 1820, Edinburgh, pp. 144.
  3. ↑ IUCN, IUCN RED List of Threatened Species accessed 24 June 2010
  4. ↑ petermaas.nl
  5. ↑ Mazák, V. (1981). "Panthera tigris" (PDF). Mammalian Species 152: 1–8. doi:10.2307/3504004.
  6. ↑ Novak, R. M. (1999). Walker's Mammals of the World (6th ed.). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0-8018-5789-9.
  7. 1 2 Vojnich, G. (1913). A Kelet-Indiai Szigetcsoporton [in the East Indian Archipelago]. Singer & Wolfner, Budapest, pp. 264.
  8. ↑ Buzas, B. and Farkas, B. (1997). An additional skull of the Bali tiger, Panthera tigris balica (Schwarz) in the Hungarian Natural History Museum. Miscellanea Zoologica Hungarica Vol 11 pp: 101-105.
  9. ↑ Miguel Covarrubias, Island Of Bali, 1937, NY published by Alfred A. Knopf Inc., pp. 75.
  10. ↑ Miguel Covarrubias, Island Of Bali, 1937, NY published by Alfred A. Knopf Inc., pp. 105.
  11. ↑ Crawfurd, J. (1820). History Of The Indian Archipelago. Volume II. Edinburgh. Pp. 144.

Further reading

External links

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