Following the footsteps of tigers in Nagarahole...

These tigers depend on the deer for food, as the forest also is a dwelling place of deers. 

Informing about the life of wild animals in Nagarahole, environmentalist Krishna Chaitanya said the tigers in this forest are completely dependent on the deer for food.

As per the speculations, at least 10 deers will be killed by a tiger in a year, which means there must be minimum 50 deers in a place where a tiger lives. Out of them, on an average a tiger hunts 10 deers, but not all the 50, he informed.

Explaining the life style of tigers in the forest, he said a tiger formulates its zone around 10 km radius of its dwelling place. The tiger restricts other tigers from entering inside that zone. Tigers too compete with each other in different styles of their own. One can see the marks created by the tigers on the trees in Nagarahole.

If a tiger jumps and creates a mark on the bark of the tree, then another tiger tries to create the mark by jumping still higher, just to make sure that it is more capable than the other tiger.

The tigers go for hunting only when they are hungry. In the absence of hunger, they do not even touch other animals even if the animals pass them in a stones throw away distance. If a tiger kills a deer for serving its stomach, then it generally eats the same dead deer for next two three days. The left outs of the tigers food will be later eaten by some of the birds and animals like eagle and wolf. In this way, the tiger indirectly feeds other smaller animals too.

Further he  informed that the tiger kins are fed with baby deers and that is why usually the tiger gives birth during the period when deers give birth.