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Differences in Social or Solitary Amur Tiger Behavior

Nicole Rosado
11 August 2018
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Introduction

Throughout this summer, I was an Environmental Education and Animal Behavior Intern

(EEABI) at the Philadelphia Zoo in Philadelphia, PA. My internship took place every Monday,

Tuesday, and Wednesday from 8:45 am to 5:00 pm, starting on May 14th through August 11th.

My supervisor, Erica Murrell, allowed us to pick two “zones” to work in, but told us we would

only be getting one that we picked, and one that we didn’t pick, to teach us how to love all the

animals at the zoo, whether we initially wanted them or not. Luckily, I was able to get both the

zones I picked- Big Cat Falls, where I would meet most of my most favored animals, and Small

Mammals and Rare Animals. These zones were given to us at orientation, so by the time we

started our internship, we knew where to go, and hopefully, some information about the animals

there.

From there, we had a week to decide what animal we would study and create a research

project on for the rest of the summer. However, just from my time at orientation, my decision

was easily made. I decided I would be studying our Amur Tigers. Later on in my research, I

chose to study the differences between our female tiger and our male tigers, how the male tigers

will interact with her presence once the female leaves the exhibit, and how weather will have an

impact on their behavior. From this, I drew three hypotheses: Koosaka will act noticeably

different than the males, the males will interact with Koosaka’s presence, and the tigers will be

most active on days where the weather is cooler or rainy.

For our research, it was critical that we should not compare the acts of our tigers to the

ones in the wild. This was because its not only hard to find data on wild tigers because of their

scarce population, but also because our tigers are not wild; so they will not have the same exact
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behaviors as ones in the wild will have. This research required behavior we could actually see

and study, not behavior that we could read about.

Review of Related Literature

In one related study, scientists Rajesh Kumar Mohapatra, Sudarsan Panda, and Usa Rani

Acharya studied the daytime behavior of 19 captive tigers in Nandankanan Zoological Park,

Odisha, India for 1254 hours between March and July of 2011. They conducted this

observational experiment for two reasons. The first, to see what stereotypical behavior and

actions tigers will repeat to cope with their enclosed environment, which is significantly different

than the habitats in the wild. This difference could potentially impact their behavior. The second

reason was to try and find out why tigers pace, and what we can try to do to reduce it.

The study consisted of 19 healthy tigers; 13 female tigers, and 9 males. Except for 2 cubs

who were housed with their mother, and two female subadults, all the other tigers were housed

individually (Mohapatra, 2014). This housing situation is optimal in the fact that tigers are

solitary animals, so they are happiest and the least stressed when by themselves. The exhibits

ranged between 250 to 350 square meters and 1250 to 1550 square meters with watering holes,

feeding spaces and trees and bushes. The average temperature during their studies was around

30˚ C, which is on the hotter end of the spectrum. From my study, I experienced less activity on

days that hot.

Once they began studying, they developed an ethogram with activities listed and

measured in 1 minute intervals, whereas I used 1 minute intervals. For each behavior they would

classify whether it was active behavior, resting behavior, or stereotypical behavior, such as

pacing. When they analyzed their data, they found that the tigers spent 16.75 ± 5.88% of their

time in active behavior, 59.94 ± 15.08% of their time in resting behavior, and 23.02 ± 14.27 % of
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their time in stereotypic behavior (Mohapatra, 2014). These percentages are all very similar to

my results that I discuss later in this paper. They found that pacing was the only stereotypical

behavior observed in their study, which is also the only stereotypical behavior I observed in my

study.

The scientists later discussed that because the cats spent much of their time pacing their

enclosures, that the enclosures were not optimal. They discuss that the main reasons for their

pacing was waiting for food, and boredom because their environment is less variable compared

to the wild. Both of these reasons are viable and are similar to what I had experienced in my own

study. However, although pacing is a coping mechanism tigers experience in zoos to alleviate

boredom and stress, they have been known to do it often in the wild as a display of territorial

behavior. This aspect was not mentioned as a reasoning of stereotypical behavior in the paper,

which I believe should have been mentioned, considering it is both a natural and stereotypical

trait. I also would have liked to see how the tigers acted when they interchanged exhibits, which

is something used as enrichment in many zoos and could help relieve boredom and pacing.

Overall, I found this article extremely interesting and similar to the experiment I conducted at the

Philadelphia Zoo.

Methodology

The methodology of my research was simple and only consisted of observational and

historical research. I observed the tigers only in their outside exhibits through glass or fencing

and I preformed no altercations or interactions with the tigers or their environments.

When I first began to study the tigers, I was studying all four of them: Grom, a 10 year

old male; Koosaka, an 11 year old female; and Dmetri and Wiz, our 6 year old twin males. Later,

my supervisor advised me that I should try to limit my subjects, because I was not spending a
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full hour observing, but instead I was going between two exhibits to try and observe them all. So,

later, I decided that I would be studying three of our four tigers- Koosaka, Dmetri, and Wiz

(Image 1).

Image 1: The three tigers I observed for my research (from left to right): Koosaka, Dmetri, and Wiz.

Koosaka is our oldest and only female at the zoo. She was born at the Philadelphia Zoo

on May 24th, 2007; making her eleven years old. She has a mating partner at the zoo, the 10 year

old Amur Tiger named Grom, in which they mated and birthed a litter last year on July 10th,

2017. Sadly, the litter was a catastrophe and only one survived but was sent away to be fostered

at another zoo. This is very common for first litters of tigers. My other two samples were Dmetri

and Wiz, our biggest tigers, weighting around 420 pounds each. Dmetri and Wiz are male twin

tigers and are both 6-years-old. They were born on June 28th and 29th of 2012 and came to the

Philadelphia Zoo from Columbus, Ohio on June 10th, 2014.

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The twins, Dmetri and Wiz, are the only tigers that go out together, both Koosaka and

Grom go out by themselves. The tigers are kept separated as they are solitary animals, only ever

socializing for mating season or when a mother is raising her cubs. However, Dmetri and Wiz

come out together do to the way they were raised. Overall, they tend to live their separate lives,

together. These differences in living conditions are the primary reasons why I decided to study

these three tigers.

When observing, I looked at three major components of their behaviors: how Kooska acts

compared to the males, how the males would interact with Koosaka’s presence after she went

inside, and how weather effected their behaviors. From these main three components, I then

formed three hypotheses: Koosaka will act noticeably different than the males, the males will

react and interact with Koosaka’s presence (such as through smell and other behaviors that will

later be discussed), and that they will all be most active on days where the temperature is cooler

and rainy.

Every Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, I would study whoever was out in the exhibit,

whether it be Koosaka alone, or Dmetri and Wiz together. I would observe them for one to two

hours and noted the time of day of the observation time, the weather, and every action they did

into a notebook. Once I had a few observation days and learned what their typical acts are, I later

formed an ethogram (Table 1).

In my ethogram I would record what the tigers were doing every 10 minutes with an ‘X’

under the activity they were doing at that time interval. A completed example of the ethogram

can be seen in Table 2. This time interval was chosen based on how active the animals are.

Because big cats tend to spend their days relaxing, I chose to use bigger time gaps so that the

activity wasn’t so repetitive. If I were to study chimpanzees, a highly active animal, the time
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gaps would be drastically smaller. I would also note how many times they swam, sprayed and

did the Flehmen Response. The Flehmen Response is a tool big cats use to “smell with their

mouths”. When the cats smell spray (a mixture of urine and glandular fluids that tigers spray to

mark their territory or communicate with other tigers), they make a grimacing face (Image 2)

which opens their Jacobson’s Organ in the roof of their mouth. This organ analyzes the chemical

pheromones within urine and spray and allows tigers to detect whether they know the tiger that

the spay/urine belongs to, if it belongs to a male or female, and for males, it helps detect whether

a female is in estrus (heat), pregnant, or ready to mate. This response is crucial to tigers as it

helps them find mates in the wild or help ward off unwanted tigers from their territory. In my

research, this response was used often with Dmetri and Wiz when they would analyze Koosaka’s

spray. This response would last no longer than 10 to 20 seconds and resulted with either one of

them spraying their spray over Koosaka’s- either in attempt to ward her off, reclaim their

territory, or to let her know that they too, were ready to mate.

Image 2: Photo of a tiger displaying the Flehmen Reaction, a tool cats use to analyze the chemical pheromones found in
urine, spray or feces.
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Table 1: Blank Ethogram used to document tiger’s activity such as sleeping, slow and fast pacing, waiting at
doors to be let in, swimming, playing, and laying down. Boxes are also present to document number of times a
tiger would spray or display the Flehman Reaction. Time intervals were kept in 10 minute segments.

18x

Table 2: An example of a completed ethogram of Koosaka’s activities for one observation session. This ethogram
represents one of Koosaka’s most active and varying days, where she sprayed up to 18 times.
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Results

Throughout my observation of the tigers, I was able to learn about their personalities.

Koosaka, our female, sprayed noticeably more than the males. On average, the males sprayed 3-4

times in one observation, where Koosaka usually sprayed around 5-7 times and sometimes would

even reach up to 18 times. I found these averages by adding up all the sprays of every

observation session, then dividing by the number of observation sessions. This data is significant

because male tigers tend to be more territorial than females. This territorial behavior can be seen

through more frequent spraying. Although the males did not spray as much as Koosaka, they did

use urine to mark their territory more than Koosaka. I later discovered that females tend to spray

significantly more when they are going through estrus; otherwise known as ‘heat’. Heat occurs

for around 2-10 days every 3-9 weeks, which happened to match up with Koosaka’s heay spray

patterns. Another trait I noticed was that Koosaka was seemingly more laid back than the males

in the way that she was wandered more than she paced. Pacing is a natural activity big cats do to

patrol and defend their territory. It is also sometimes seen in zoos as a display of boredom or

stress. The twins would spend much of their time pacing, whereas Koosaka would mostly

wander with no specific direction. However, Koosaka would show her defensive traits in ways

such as staring and getting into a “defense mode” when other cats would pass above in the 360

trail, a trail that runs above the zoo and exhibits that the big cats and other animals would enjoy

and explore in. She was also extremely more vocal than the males were. In a time frame of about

10 minutes, Koosaka groaned 25 times. Groaning is used to communicate with other tigers in the

territory, or ward off unwanted company. In this case, Kira, one of our Amur Leopards, was

pacing above Koosaka’s territory in the 360 trail. So, most likely the groans were being used to

try and scare Kira off. I had experienced these vocalizations from Koosaka on about 5 other
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occurrences throughout my internship at the zoo, but I never experienced them once with the

males. The most vocalizations I experienced with the males were threatening roars at each other

or at Koosaka when she was in the trail. From watching these vocal interactions, I quickly

learned who was the dominant one in the exhibit. On multiple occurrences, Wiz would approach

Dmetri sleeping and would begin to instigate him and claw at him. Dmetri, who had the

disadvantage, would often roar in defense and try his best to claw Wiz away. Although these

interactions are most likely playful tiffs between two brothers, it was still easy to see who the

alpha male was. Wiz would even instigate Koosaka when she was up in the 360 trail. He would

often jump at the fence to try to get to Koosaka, and would usually roar aggressively at her,

which would scare her off. Another trait that set Koosaka apart from the males was the fact that

she would often eat grass. Grass eating is also a common act big cats do to relieve indigestion;

and Koosaka would take part in it during almost every observation session. However, this was

trait that I had not observed with the twins.

Next, I studied how the male tigers would interact with Koosaka’s presence once she

went inside and they came out. When the males came out, they would first mark their territory

with urine. Then, they would patrol their territory, smelling all Koosaka’s scents and sprays.

When they picked up her scents, they would react with the Flehmen Response. The Flehmen

Response is a tool cats use to smell with their mouths and is displayed by a grimacing look

(Image 2). This grimace opens the Jacobson’s organ located at the roof of their mouths and is

used to detect and analyze chemical pheromones in urine, feces and spray. This response usually

only lasts for about 10 to 30 seconds and can detect numerous traits about the identity of the

owner. From this reaction, a tiger can detect whether they know the owner of the spray, if it

belongs to a male or a female, and for males, it can detect whether or how far along a female is
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in estrus, or if she is pregnant. After this response, the males would then spray over Koosaka’s

spray in an attempt to reclaim their territory, or to let her know that they too, are ready to mate.

After, they would continue going all around the exhibit and repeat these actions. Just by seeing

this process, it was clear that Dmetri and Wiz did in fact interact with Koosaka’s presence and

did not just ignore it as if she was never there.

Lastly, I analyzed the effects of weather has on big cat behavior. Precipitation and

humidity have the biggest impact on big cat behavior. Cats typically spend their time sleeping in

the shade to conserve their energy when weather, such as excessive heat and lack of precipitation

occurs. Also knowing that tigers are one of the only big cats that enjoy water, I was able to form

my hypothesis that they would be most active on cool and rainy days. Every day I would write

the details of the weather in my observation book; for example, the temperature, whether it was

raining or not, overcast, and whether it felt hot or cool. However, some days where the

temperature was higher, it felt cooler because of factors such as humidity, overcast, wind, and

time of day. So, for this part, I chose to a temperature scale of 80 and above being hot, and

anything below being cool, but also took into account what I wrote for that day, whether I felt it

was hot or cold. So, if a day was below 80, but I felt it was reasonably hot, I would categorize

that day as hot.

Then, I made 5 categories based on the cats’ most common activities: laying, sleeping,

pacing, swimming, and playing (interactions with each other, running, or interacting with their

enrichment toys). I then went through all my data collections and tallied under the category each

time one of the cats did that certain act from the 10 minute intervals. In total, I collected 34 days

of data- 17 hot days and 17 cool days. In the hot day category, I collected 122 tally marks of

activity and 144 tally marks of activity for cool days. I then used their common denominators to
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convert the activity categories into percentages which are represented in the pie charts in Fig. 1.

Just by looking at these charts, you can see that there are clear differences between the two. On

hot days, their most frequent activities are sleeping and laying down, in an attempt to conserve

energy and stay cool from the sun. Although laying down is still a major activity in the cool

temperatures, much of their time spent here was laying in the rain or under cover when the rain

was too heavy. Also, big cats are fairly lazy, so laying down will always be a large part of their

day in the fact that they can sleep 18 to 20 hours a day. Sleeping percentages decrease 30% from

their hot days to their cool days. Although they are spending more time laying down, they’re

actually sleeping less. So, on cooler days even though they’re still laying down a lot, they are

still active and awake. Next, their 3rd biggest activity on hot days was pacing. This is due to the

fact that they are very territorial animals and much of the tallies in this category were observed

from the males, since they are considered the pacers compared to Koosaka. But, if you compare

the hot day pacing to the cool day pacing, you can see an extreme difference. On cooler days, the

tigers spend 14% more time pacing than they do on hot days, making pacing the second biggest

activity they do on cool days. Finally, the tigers spend 13% of their time on hot days swimming,

whereas they spend only 7% on cool days. Their swim time decreases only because its not so hot

anymore and they don’t feel inclined to cool off in the pool as much, though they still enjoy to

swim, even when its raining. However, even though their swim time decreases, their play time

increases 10%. This playing category includes running, interactions with each other, scratching

and playing with enrichment toys. From all these differences, you can see that on cooler days,

the tigers spend much less time sleeping, and more time playing and pacing; making them much

more active on cooler days.

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Time Spent on Hot Days

3%

13% 22%

19%

43%

laying sleeping pacing swimming playing

Time Spent on Cool Days

13%

7% 34%

33%
13%

laying sleeping pacing swimming playing

Figure 1: Pie charts representing the differences of time spent doing activities on hot and cool days.

Conclusions

After evaluating all my data and results, I was able to clearly see many personality

differences between Koosaka and the males. I was also able to confirm my first hypothesis that

Koosaka was noticeably different than the males. For example, the biggest and most important

difference between them was that Koosaka was much more laid back than the males in the fact
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that she didn’t patrol her territory nearly as much, but she made up for her territorial instincts

through her frequent spraying. She would also frequently feed on grass and vocalize by

groaning; two acts that I never witnessed with the twins.

Next, I was able to confirm my second hypothesis that the males would react to

Koosaka’s presence after she went inside, and they came out. When the twins came out, they

would first mark their territory with urine, then patrol and smell all the places where Koosaka

had sprayed throughout the day. They would then react to her spray by smelling and rubbing in

it, and then would perform the Flehmen reaction. After this, they would go along and begin to

cover her spray with their own. This small yet important interaction was the main influence in

the proving of my hypothesis.

Finally, my collection of data concerning what the tigers did on hot versus cool days

confirms my last hypotheses that the cats are more active during cooler days than they are on hot

days. On hot days, they spent 43% of their time sleeping, whereas on cooler days they spent only

13%. Although their time sleeping decreased, their time resting and laying increased from 22%

on hot days to 34% on cool days. Next, the cats only paced about 19% on hot days and 33% on

cool days; making a 14% difference in activity. Finally, although their swim time decreased from

13% to 7% on cool days, their play time made a significant increase from 3% to 13% on cool

days.

Overall, these percentages made a clear representation of the differences in tiger behavior

on hot and cool days. Because of the decreases in sleep time and the increases in playing, pacing,

and active resting, I was able to confirm my third hypothesis: that the cats would be significantly

more active on cooler days.

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References

Annabell, M. (2001). Detailed information on the characteristics of the tiger: Tiger Tails.
Retrieved June 25, 2018, from http://www.lairweb.org.nz/tiger/tail.html
Annabell, M. (2001). Detailed information on the characteristics of the tiger: Flehman. Retrieved
June 25, 2018, from http://www.lairweb.org.nz/tiger/flehman.html
Annabell, M. (2001). Detailed information on the characteristics of the tiger: Communication
and Sound Files. Retrieved June 25, 2018, from
http://www.lairweb.org.nz/tiger/communication.html

Flehmen Behavior 이미지 - 게티이미지뱅크. (n.d.). Retrieved from

https://m.gettyimagesbank.com/search/이미지/flehmen-
behavior?st=union&page=2&q=Flehmen Behavior
Mohapatra, R. K., Panda, S., & Acharya, U. R. (july- august 2014). Study on activity pattern and
incidence of stereotypic behavior in captive tigers. Journal of Veterinary Behavior:
Clinical Applications and Research, 9(4), 172-176. Retrieved August 3, 2018, from
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1558787814000379.
Meyer, A. (1970, January 01). Tigers.org.za. Retrieved June 25, 2018, from
https://www.tigers.org.za/tigers-diet.html
Rettenmaier, J. (2018). Summer heat. Retrieved June 25, 2018, from
https://www.catsbest.eu/catsbest_en/about-cats/posts/cats-and-heat.php
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Impact

Through this internship, I not only learned about animals, but I also learned a great

amount about myself. Through teaching others and developing my own relationship with the

animals, I began to really learn how much this field means to me. Wildlife conservation is

something everyone should love and care about, and there are so many ways we can help them;

whether it be big or small. I really learned how much I love educating people on these animals

and how passionate I am about wildlife.

From my short time at the Philadelphia Zoo, I really excelled in a professional standpoint.

Before the internship, I was a bit shy and was still afraid to ask questions, especially to people

with careers I aspired to have. However, this internship really helped me open up. I was able to

invoke empathy into people about wildlife in general, and the animals we had at the zoo. I was

also able to find out the process and get advice on how to become a zookeeper by going to panels

and talking to the keepers at the zoo. I have learned such an extreme amount on animals that I

know that I’ll never forget and will certainly be of use in my upcoming wildlife courses at

Stockton University.

Environmental Science is an extremely broad topic with many opportunities and ways to

participate in it. Even in the focus of wildlife, there are so many options; whether it be

observational work or hands on work. Many of the zookeepers that I met were not enrolled in

environmental science, yet they were able to find their way and become what they are today. I

found this truly inspiring and incredible, and I look forward to my future in the field of

environmental science.

Though I learned so much from my internship experience, I know that I still have a long

way to go. For my future career, I would still like to be able to learn more about animals and
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acquire more skills on educating the public on them. But most of all, I really want to gain more

experience hands on with animals, especially exotic ones. I feel this experience is critical for my

dream of becoming a zoo keeper, rehabilitator or sanctuary worker.

This internship has influenced my career goals in many ways. Last summer, I volunteered

at a wildlife rehabilitation center, where I worked hands on with a variety of animals daily.

However, at the zoo, I hardly worked hands on with animals other than goats, turtles and

tortoises. So, this lack of hands on work really made me miss my days of rehabilitation and

hands on work. Even though I really enjoyed my internship at the zoo, I just wished it was more

hands on, or involved more work with keeping some of the animals. So, from being only able to

educate, I did realize how much I would love to work hands on with those animals. This

internship has also motivated me to really look further into future internships. Like I said

previously, I aspire to be able to work at a big cat sanctuary and have already found at least three

that I plan on applying to in the future. I also have found an animal care internship at a zoo in

Florida that allows the interns to work with a wide variety of animals, such as rhinos! Another

option I found is a volunteering opportunity at a wildlife rehab and sanctuary in Africa that I

would love and be honored to take part in. Overall, this internship has taught me so much about

the field and has motivated me to really start working hard to achieve my goals and dreams

towards the field.

Evaluation

The Environmental Education and Animal Behavior Internship at the Philadelphia Zoo

not only met my expectations, but exceeded them. I really didn’t think I was going to have nearly

as much fun as I had. This internship made me excited to wake up at 7 o’clock in the morning

and stand out in the heat all day. It was honestly the greatest part of my summer and one of the
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best experiences I ever had. I worked with a group of amazing people every day and met lifelong

friends. There was something to learn every day, and always something to teach. It was so

rewarding to be able to talk to the youth about their favorite animals and be able to make them

care and see them want to make a change. I really couldn’t have asked for more from this

internship.

I feel very confident in my performance at the Philadelphia Zoo. I tried to talk to every

guest that came my way about whatever animal I was standing by. I would often approach guests

and inform them about whatever animal they were looking at. If there was a large group by, I

would passionately present, and there was always at least one fact someone didn’t know. I even

had some kids come up and hug me to thank me for my interaction and information, which I

thought was extremely adorable and rewarding. Finally, the zoo has a reward system in which

they give cards to the guests to give to a staff member that made their experience at the zoo

memorable. I was rewarded two in a shift at our fossa exhibit for my presentation and interacting

with a family. That experience was personally rewarding and encouraged me to be passionate

about educating and making people love animals as much as I do.

I will be sure to recommend this internship to every person I meet with a passion for

wildlife and education. There is so much to learn and gain from this internship. From making

connections and friends, gaining and sharing knowledge, and developing relationships with

animals most people don’t even get to see in their lifetime, this internship was the greatest

experience in my life, and I am so honored to have been able to take part in it. The Philadelphia

Zoo will always hold a very special place in my heart and I would easily do this internship again

in the future.