Habitat of tigers
Tigers require only dense vegetation and are tolerant of a very wide range of tropical, subtropical and temperate habitat types including:
- Tropical evergreen and deciduous forests of Southern Asia
- Tropical rainforest (eg Sumatra)
- Low lying freshwater swamp-forest & tidal salt water mangrove swamps (eg the Sundarbans of Bangladesh and India)
- Moist monsoon forest / meadows (eg Kanha National Park in India)
- Tall grass jungles at foot of the Himalayas (eg Chitwan National Park in Nepal)
- Scrubland – subtropical dry & moist types
- Temperate mountainous mixed forest (eg the mixed coniferous/deciduous woodlands of the Russian Far East)
Tigers generally occur from sea level to 2000m asl, although they have been recorded at altitudes < 4.200m asl in the Himalayas. They tolerate high tropical summer temperatures, and deep winter snowfall with temperatures as low as minus 40oC in the Russian Far East.
Tigers readily enter water. They are excellent swimmers and will often lie up in water during heat of the day. Although tigers rarely climb trees, they can and will on occasions.
More important than vegetation itself are:
- Sufficient large ungulate prey (mainly wild pigs and deer species). Tiger densities are positively related to the abundance of medium to large ungulates. Although they may be able to survive on small prey alone, they do not persist where medium to large prey are absent.
- Access to water.
- For males: access to females.
- For females: access to sufficient prey to raise young.
