Reading a lot of the older books as far as tiger hunting etc., most always the PH stakes out young male buffalo when hunting man eating tigers. It's mentioned so many times that I started to wonder why always male bufs?
Just a guess - males are surplus as far as needing breeding stock, young are more quickly replaced than older prime males.
Dunno either. But reading Jim Corbett right now and he writes he brought four young bulls with him on this tiger hunt for bait.....
Maybe tigers like BALLS...
And Im wondering why this is in the Africa forum.....not a lot of tigers in Africa....
Smaller, more vulnerable than a big bull? More enticing to a tiger?
Maybe also the premise is wrong? Cows more valuable than bulls?
If they were domestic, as opposed to something being hunted with a trophy fee,
cows probably were more valuable.
My guess is that they cost less than cows or breeding bulls. Also size may be a factor. big enough to ensure the tiger/tigress will come back
for 2 or 3 feedings, but not so big, that the tiger might hesitate to attack. JMO
BH63
Reading a lot of the older books as far as tiger hunting etc., most always the PH stakes out young male buffalo when hunting man eating tigers. It's mentioned so many times that I started to wonder why always male bufs?
Male odor is stronger I would guess. Female of most domesticated species are always more valuable.
My strong impression from reading Corbett is that he believed tigers preferred young male buffalo over other bait animals, though he used goats sometimes to humor villagers. When a woman who had lost a son to a tiger wanted him to use her older cow buffalo as bait, he agreed to make her feel better but privately considered that the cow was of no use to him as bait. He does record tigers killing cattle, milk cows, and would sit up over one if a tiger killed it but he consistently chose young male buffalo as bait.
I don't know why but he had reason and I can't quibble with his success.
Along that line, Corbett's knowledge of game is hilarious to a duffer like me. He wrote that if he could find a tiger scratch mark along a road, as any sportsman knows (a tongue in cheek comment no doubt), it would reveal the sex and age of the animal, the direction of its travel, where its headquarters were and if it had recently eaten a human.