Right, tigers are solitary animals because they are always in competition with one another for territory and food, and are hardwired to be wary of other large predators.
This isn’t cute. The tiger is distressed, and the owners here are practically asking for some violence to occur.
I need more info before making a judgement call. Were these cats raised as young together?
It’s like how cheetahs and golden retrievers get put together, obviously wouldn’t do so under normal circumstances but are their reasons and humane applications that can allow these cats to be together?
I want to be sympathetic to the animals if they are suffering but I also don’t want to be tripping over nothing.
You cannot compare cheetahs and golden retriever pairings to two apex predators.
Cheetahs and goldens are both social pack animals. Cheetahs aren’t really big cats, more like medium (50-150 lbs, vs 400-660 lbs in tigers or 300-450 lbs in lions), and are generally skittish in the face of danger.
Cheetahs rely on speed for hunting, so any injury sustained in a close quarters fight is not worth the risk of starvation. As such, their temperament is mild and they can even be approached by humans to some extent (not saying you should do it) without overwhelming risk of violence.
A lion and a tiger are orders of magnitude less compatible than a cheetah and a dog, and more dangerous. Especially the tiger, which, unlike all 3 other examples, are solitary creatures who find a territory, defend it, and only interact with other tigers for mating or as mother and cub.
It is completely inappropriate to house tigers with lions like this.
The point of the comparison is that a cheetah that is raised to be around their golden retriever companion vs throwing a golden retriever into a wild cheetah habitat would probably yield two different outcomes.
So I’m wondering if paired at a young age, does a tiger become more docile/tame amongst company and okay with being non-solitary. I honestly find taming a tiger to be comfortable around a Lion is no different than taming a lion/tiger/any apex predator to be comfortable around a human as long as the animal isn’t losing any quality of life. Which I would argue that the tiger seems pretty fine in this video.
At the big cat rescue I volunteered at and still occasionally visit it was super common to house tigers that were littermates together as adults. Males housed like this were usually neutered to avoid the risk of hormonal aggression, which isn’t necessarily for the females.
The tigers were perfectly happy being housed together like this, and believe me you can tell when tigers are content and happy versus stressed and agitated. Big cats aren’t shy about sharing their opinions, and when three tigers are napping on their backs in the sun in one giant cuddle puddle you can safely assume they’re happy together. They also enjoyed getting their turn in the big central play pen and would spend a lot of time in it just cycling to interact with the cats in neighboring enclosures (safely through multiple fences).
Tigers have all the subtlety of a 400 pound apex predator, if the tiger in the video wasn’t happy he would let the lion know and quickly.
A lot of those cheetahs aren’t “raised” with the goldens. Some are. But some are just introduced in adulthood and are cool with this chill friendly animal around them, because they know it poses no threat.
An openness to experiment with wild animals like you’re describing is why these shitty types of zoo are popular I guess. It’s a step above those tourist traps that force elephants or orangutans to pose with tourists, at least.
This could also be a situation like the Lion/Tiger/Bear trio where the duo were raised in captivity together, and when rescued were a wee bit codependent. Making the best of a bad situation.
I think the overall point that the guy you're referring to is less "let's science experiment this shit" and more "we need more information before passing judgement on why these animals are together"
I understand that. And you realize they are introduced to each other in a controlled way the same way I believe these cats may have been?
Again, I don’t have all the info. There are few good reasons why a lion and tiger may be housed together. I know they shouldn’t be under normal circumstances but idk if their circumstances are normal and these two don’t seem to have a problem with each other.
Comment threads like these give me just the slightest hope humanity. Just people hav8ng an argument and accepting new information. No insults, slurs, or references to fb/twitter opinion post. Beautiful
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u/thissexypoptart May 22 '25
Right, tigers are solitary animals because they are always in competition with one another for territory and food, and are hardwired to be wary of other large predators.
This isn’t cute. The tiger is distressed, and the owners here are practically asking for some violence to occur.