Category: cat behavior

The magnificent tiger in the photo above is officially called P-243, but he’s affectionately known to locals as The Hulk of Panna.

He made his home about a decade ago in the Panna Tiger Reserve, a 210-square-mile national park in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, home to more than 72 million people.

What makes him special, aside from his massive frame, is the fact that when his longtime mate died and left four of their cubs to fend for themselves, the Hulk stepped up and became a full-time dad.

The mom, known as P-213-32, had previously given birth to a litter of four cubs, but only two survived. As far as the rangers at Panna National Park could tell, the Hulk and P-213 had been together for years. The new cubs were their second litter.

The Hulk “was not seen with any other tigress,” the rangers wrote in a report.

On May 12, 2021, park rangers were concerned when P-213’s radio collar began transmitting potential mortality signals, alerting them to the fact that the tigress hadn’t moved for about six hours. The rangers observed her from a distance, then dispatched a team of elephant scouts to take a closer look.

The use of elephants by experienced riders in India to monitor tigers is as ancient as it is ingenious — while virtually every other animal in a tiger’s habitat gives the big cats a wide berth, elephants and tigers have an unspoken mutual agreement, a kind of wild non-aggression pact. That’s because as massive and powerful creatures who move in packs, elephants are too much trouble for tigers to bother with. Unlike their lion cousins who do hunt elephants opportunistically, tigers don’t form prides and even if elephants were solitary animals and easier to hunt, even a mother and her hungry cubs — let alone a single tiger — can’t eat that much meat. They also can’t transport the kill to safer dining spots the way they do with their typical prey.

So tigers and elephants tend to do little more than acknowledge each other’s presence, and the tigers have learned that humans riding on elephants aren’t hostile.

The elephant rangers who got close to P-213 realized the tigress had a swollen right forelimb and they made the decision to sedate her. For the next two nights, field veterinarians accompanied the rangers and administered painkillers and antibiotics. The treatment seemed to work, the swelling was reduced and the tigress was ambulatory if still sluggish, but she died less than a week later.

Her death “came as a shock to all of us,” the team wrote. “A beautiful tigress and a caring mother, [her death] left her four cubs alone.”

Frustratingly, a postmortem and lab analysis of her blood didn’t turn up any obvious cause of death.

P-213’s death “was itself heavy loss to bear but now the major worry was her four orphaned cubs,” the ranger team wrote. The cubs were last seen with her on May 10, about 11 days before she died. The two previous days they’d been spotted sharing a kill with their mother, and rangers reported the cubs looked strong and healthy.

A few days later, after an exhaustive search by five elephant riders and 50 park rangers, a ground team found the cubs “healthy and active and [did not appear] hungry or stressed.” They also spotted their father, the Hulk, nearby.

What happened next was extraordinary.

After park rangers cremated P-213, the Hulk approached the site about an hour after the last people cleared out. The next day, rangers observed him “sitting for long hours at the place where P-213 died.”

They also saw the dedicated mate and father calling out softly as he looked for his cubs, three males and a female who were about seven months old at the time.

A few days later, the Hulk successfully hunted a sambhar, a type of deer, and shared the kill with his cubs according to a local news report. Then on June 6, the Hulk was spotted feeding the kids again after he killed a cow.

“For the entire day the tiger remained in the area but did not eat the kill. This was unexpected behaviour from a tiger and the PTR management deployed ground staff deployed to find out the reason,” the news report said. “The team found that the area where the tiger killed the cow is the territory of four tiger cubs. This male tiger, known as P243, is their father. The cubs had lost their mother a month ago.”

As if he hadn’t done enough to earn “dad of the year” honors for his species, the Hulk was even spotted playing with his offspring.

“After the death of the tigress, we located these cubs and placed camera traps in the area,” said U.K. Sharma, the director of Panna Tiger Reserve. “We found that the tiger visits these cubs regularly, and his behavior shows that he is not a threat to the cubs. We have seen the cubs playing with the male tiger and sharing kills.”

The team at Panna reserve continued watching closely and got to see the cubs flourish in the care of their dad. There were moments of uncertainty when rangers went days without seeing the cubs or finding their pug marks, but their fears were always put to rest by trail cameras that captured images of the Hulk with his kids in tow, resting with them in favorite spots and sharing meals with them as he taught them to hunt and survive.

Because male tigers typically aren’t known for nourishing behavior and their traditional role is to defend their territory to keep their mates and cubs safe, the Panna reserve’s staff were ready to step in if things began to look dicey. They never had to. A follow-up report about eight months later, when the cubs were healthy and fast-growing 15-month-olds, affirmed the team’s earlier decision to stay hands-off and let the Hulk do his thing.

“Surviving the wild without mother tigress is no mean feat but surprises do happen,” the rangers wrote. “And these become experiences, practices and lessons for the future. The lesson learnt is ‘[the] best thing one can do when tiger cubs are growing is to let them grow. Let us permit nature to have her way. She understands her business better than we do.'”