During this COVID19 pandemic, social distancing is on the forefront of everyone’s mind and difficult for us because humans are social animals. But for tigers, social distancing is a way of life. Tigers are a solitary species and keeping their distances from one another except to mate and raise cubs comes naturally to them. They control who they come in contact with by communicating through scent marks. Tigers leave scent marks on specific trees or rocks; places where scent will persist and where other tigers will find it. For example, females will leave scent to advertise to her mate when she is ready to mate, or males and females will both leave scent marks to advertise their territory boundaries and avoid contact and physical altercations with strangers.
Take a look at these two short video camera trap clips from Zov Tigra National Park in the Russian Far East where the same tree attracts two different tigers, the first a female, the second a male 6 days later. Story courtesy of Linda Kerley. Clips courtesy of Ano Amur/ZSL Russia.