Tiger "Cathay"'s Amazing Hunt

Back


It is a battle between a South China tiger named Cathay, a young antelope, its mother & sibling, at Laohu Valley Reserve in South Africa.

Inspired by the Battle at Kruger, we thought to put our prized video of this fantastic hunt in our rewilding project on YouTube for the public.

Tigers Cathay (the one with Radio Collar), TigerWoods and Madonna, newly re-released into the 42 hectare large training camp were hunting, following the gorup of antelop called Blesbok. Cathay however split off and disappeared into a gully. When TigerWoods got quite close to one antelope he started to chase. The antelope crossed over the gully and back in the direction towards where Cathay had been crouching low, not knowing that she has been hiding in the grass waiting for them. Cathay singled out a young antelope-about 8 week old and in a split second, leapt out and cuaght hold of it but it wriggled out of her grasp. The Tiger managed to snatch it again, back and forth a few times. The strange thing was that Cathay (who we thought was TigerWoods initally due to the distance) could have easily killed the small antelope but she did not. She seemed to be playing with it.

Meanwhile the mother of the young tried to save its child! She and another charged back and forth at Cathay in an extraordinary action. Perhaps it was motivated by maternal instinct, or perhaps it simply under-estimated the ability of the tigers, having successfully escaped from being hunted in the past year. However its action finally cost it its life.

When Cathay seemed to be playing Catch & Release, the mother antelope came charging back at the tiger. Cathay, in a most unexpected move of lightening speed, let go the young and grabbed the mother. The antelop was however very stoic and stood stiff as Cathay tried to topple her using the force of her mouth, but it took the tiger quite a while to drop the antelop. Only then was Cathay able to deliver the final bite.
The young antelope meanwhile, had run away! It appears its mother's sacrifice had saved her child. WE saw it reunited with the antelope group two days later.

Two things are extraordinary: First, an antelope mother does not try to save her offspring in the wild very often, knowing she would be no match for a predator. Second, Cathay could have easily killed the young antelope but instead she played with it. Was it because she was using it to attract the bigger one, or because her maternal instinct told her to capture the young antelope alive for the younger tigers so they could practice hunting by playing with it, just like big cat mothers in the wild?

This video is copyrighted and cannot be used without the express permission of Save China's Tigers.
www.savechinastigers.org

Channel: Pets & Animals
Uploaded: September 10, 2007 at 6:16 pm
Author: SAVECHINASTIGERS

Length: 00:06:42
Rating: 4.12
Views: 65620

Tags: tiger lion jaguar leopard cat feline elephant hunt south africa China battle park kill chase vs bear king beast puma

Video Comments:
kingharsh71 (July 11, 2008 at 10:54 pm)
Heart Of mother...mother is mother
Sanaomi8635 (July 11, 2008 at 4:38 pm)
So you're saying tigers should'nt be put there? thats rediculous the animal is going extinct. any enviorment that can be used for rewilding, should be used in my opinion. I mean it's a huge fenced off area so the tigers arn't going to interfere with any other animals enviorment/ecosystem whatever have you.
nusrathussein (July 4, 2008 at 1:40 am)
bruce lee is the greatest martial artist of all time.
chan0327 (June 14, 2008 at 10:48 pm)
Tigers were in Europe until 1930's
they(caspian) exticted now...
roymer (May 14, 2008 at 7:52 pm)
First time I heard of tigers in Africa.
Tigers are ASIAN animals.
PTigris7 (May 14, 2008 at 8:05 pm)
These are south china tigers, and experts declared them extinct in the wild in 2002.

These are captive bred individuals, who were sent to South Africa for rewilding, for them to eventually be sent back to China for release. There is no intention of releasing them in Africa so don't worry.

For more information on this Rewilding project, you can visit. triple w dot savechinastigers (dot )org
Allanfan20 (May 14, 2008 at 7:15 pm)
Yeah, but it's kind of a dumb sacrifice. How's the baby gonna survive now without the mother and do we know for a fact that it was her baby anyway?
sultanheart (May 15, 2008 at 2:04 pm)
sorry if my comment made u angry.. but i heard them saying: "the mother"
more over, u cannot predict the future of the baby... its gods well not u dear.. one more point my dear, there is nothing named dumb sacrifice.. SACRIFICE IS ALWAYS A GREAT MANNER.tnx
yusussf (April 28, 2008 at 6:00 pm)
truly it was magnificent and fabulous and that proves that tigers can live and survive in all game reservesin africa espescially masia mara tsavo and serengeti keep your good work and patiences will pay u boy warior
Pantheratigris7 (April 16, 2008 at 12:25 pm)
You are not worst than those zookeepers but you are bad enough to actually claim that save China's Tigers is in par with a zoo like Harbin tiger "park". Harbin tiger farm is known for its live feeding and cruelty. Save China's Tigers is known for its purebred tiger rewilding and conservation efforts of tigers yet you are now linking them together?

look cleary at the video, the prey was a wild animal called a blesbuck not some domestic cow who don't know what is a predator.