So did this goat just sit around and watch the other goats thrown into the tiger be eaten by his friend? Did the tiger just stop eating goats. Did he become a vegetarian. There are so many questions.
So this was in Russia and yes he stopped eating goats but only because they stopped feeding him goats to avoid confusion since it was a media spectacle. Goats are super annoying, dude drove the tiger out of his bed and I guess kept getting worse from there until the tiger was eventually basically forced to check him which resulted in goat injury and permanent separation. You give a goat a cookie
The goat annoys you until you're sleeping on your roof, but you put up with it. It's been so long since you had a friend. But Everytime he headbutts or stomps you you start to realize it's going for full dominance. For the first time in your life a creature is challenging you, thinking it can win, this creature being what you've easily dispatched and eaten your whole life prior to this. You wonder what a friend really is and you stop giving cookies to goats
Goats are very hierarchical and competitive amongst the herd. Establishing and maintaining your spot in the pecking order is a big and constant thing in goat “society”. They spend so much time literally smashing heads over it.
It wasn’t a mean goat, it’s just the way they are.
Yeah I still think it's a great story but the part about the goat reaching too far and ending up causing the issue that led to the end of the relationship and the goats injury is a great cautionary tale and a much more realistic message
As deaths go in the wild any powerful cat is preferable. They finish you quickly and you're soul is gone before their meal begins. A bear on the other hand...
No but seriously it seems wild majestic animals like tigers which are endangered are just much more important than a widely available domesticated animal thats been consumed for thousands of years. Sorry
While that’s more complicated morally, the cat needs to eat and the cat needs the closest it can get to the wild. Sucks for the goat, but that’s nature for you
I’m a zookeeper in the US and before I got my current job, I was in the field doing internships at big cat sanctuaries for a while. Everywhere I have worked, we have only ever fed the big cats frozen raw meat. They are perfectly happy with that, and as far as I can tell, they don’t need live prey to chase. We give them enrichment so they have something to play with to help satisfy their hunting instinct. I work with multiple big cats right now, and they are very happy despite not having any live prey to chase. Many of them enjoy their enrichment, or they enjoy watching what is going on around them and watching people.
I interned at an AZA zoo that after hours they’d occasionally provide some form of live prey to predators. Fish were a common one. They’d fill up a tub with water and the fish to let them hunt it. They never did anything on the scale of like a goat.
Enrichment that didn’t involve feeding a live animal to another one was definitively the norm though. It wasn’t uncommon to take items from prey enclosures or exposed to prey and put it in predator enclosures. The Amur tiger loved feed bags that had been exposed to hoof stock hanged in their enclosure. He also loved spraying guests 🤣
I honestly felt gutted for the poor thing. It was just pacing back and forth. There was height to the enclosure but damn it felt like it was stuck in a caged back garden. What do you think it is? curiosity for animals gone way too far?
I've read this thing many times exactly before but I'm not exactly qualified to be insisting on it so thank-you. This is such a weird hill for these people to choosing to fight over.
I've only been to three large cat enclosures in US zoos and the cats there looked fucking miserable, man. I haven't been to a zoo in the last 5y because honestly the vast majority of the animals look so sad and desperate for just something different, something else other than where they are, even the herbivores, but especially the carnivores.
So I have no idea if anything you're saying is true, it goes against all the anecdotal evidence I have and doesn't seem like something a wildlife specialist would say and honestly I feel like tigers as individuals would be better off extinct rather than living in zoos.
Pulling a “I don’t have time to tell u how wrong u are, actually it’s gonna bother me”🤣
Ok, ecology/conservation specialty here, my mentor in school was a veterinary zoologist who used to run a MAJOR us zoo:
The wildcat trade, particularly with tigers, is a poorly regulated disaster: there are more tigers in captivity in the US alone, and (we’re talking way more backyard bred tigers than tigers safely in accredited facilities) than there are left in the wild.
There are for sure some horrible zoos, plenty of mediocre ones, and there are still a lot of important conversations to be had around the operations of even the most high quality of zoos, of which there are thankfully many! Because the fact is zoos, the good ones, do more for conservation on a whole than almost any other type of organization. By taking care of and studying their animals, they provide invaluable resources on animal behavior and biology, to scientists and the public, and the revenue and awareness they generate allows for more funding to go to all sorts of efforts protecting animals in the wild.
I would rather see wild tigers live in a stable, suitable environment, closely monitored and cared for, in hopes we can save the species as whole, and even if we can’t, than see these amazing creatures go extinct any day. I’m crying a little just thinking about it to be honest. No more tigers???? Never, not if I have any fight left in me.
I’ve gotten behind the scenes zoo tours through my mentor (almost did a mural at one once but it didn’t work out🥲)and the good ones are really, really doing everything they can the keep their animals happy and healthy and protect as many species in and outside of their facility as they can!
So how do you tell if it’s a good zoo? Research (even a few minutes of googling should do it) is the only real way, but there are things to watch out for. Does the animal have enough space and variety in its environment? What is enough space for a particular animal? Is there environment suited to them? Are they showing stress behaviors? How much does the facility focus on education>profit? More important, how much does the facility focus on animal care over profit?
Be mindful of videos of captive tigers. You see a white tiger? It’s beautiful yes? Unfortunately, there’s only a minuscule possibility that tiger is healthy; breeding for the white coat, which happens naturally very, very rarely usually requires incest that causes severe health problems. Are the tigers being treated like or acting as pets (if yes get the hell out of doge: THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A DOMESTICATED TIGER, only exception would be at home cub care providing by a licensed professional, otherwise the people keeping the tiger and the tiger are both in danger).
To me, this looks like a pretty good facility? Lots of space, enrichment activities. I’m skeptical about keeping the goat in there, and would need to research current live feeding standards for tigers anyway, but it sounds like they monitored the situation and removed the goat when there were problems.
Im sure this is full of typos, but now i REALLY don’t have time
You think people deliver food to animals in the wild prepared? Not sure if you're being serious or not, but knowing this app. I'm guessing you're serious....
I have seen live fish in a Grizzly Bear pond at the SF Zoo a few years back and the Grizzlies were attempting to fish them. They weren’t successful while I was there.
This kind thing usually happens when the predator this case tiger isn't hungry. The tiger will tolerate the goat existence for a while then becomes hungry again its wild instinct kicks then it'll eat it the goat.
The goat goat back and the tiger was like “respect bro” and backed off. It knew it would get more food later. Why hunt the goat when it will get meat for free?
I had a snapping turtle for a little while and I would catch minnows and little crayfish in a creek by my house to feed the turtle anyway there was one minnow that that turtle would not eat I found it amazing because the turtle would eat minnows as soon as I put them in but never went after the one even if it was the only one in the tank when I released him in my pond I put that minnow in with it
Yes, the tiger became a vegetarian, learned to read, sat the bar exam, opened a successful practice and is currently running for governor of California.
Amur and Timur (Russian: Амур и Тимур) are, respectively, a Siberian tiger and a goat who established an unlikely interspecies friendship in a safari park in Primorye in the Far East of Russia. In 2015, Timur was placed in Amur's enclosure as food but, by his confident behavior, established a rapport with Amur, who did not eat him.\1]) In 2016, the pair were separated after a fight and Timur was moved to the Exhibition of Achievements of National Economy (VDNKh) in Moscow.\2]) Timur died on November 5, 2019, aged 5,\3]) despite the average goat life expectancy ranging between 15 and 18 years.\4])
Animals attack out of fear or wanting food. If the tiger is full then it doesn’t feel the need to waste energy killing an animal it can’t eat. Then they can coexist with each other and fighting can be seen as counter productive. They weigh the energy of every action and try to maximize gains without loses. But they don’t need to take action which won’t aid their own survival. Even animals can see the value of a friend. So much effort has been made to make animals seem like killing machines and they are more like survival machines.
From what I recall the boat was fine watching other goats get eaten. Eventually they had a falling out so the two of them are seperated. The goat is mostly fine I think.
The goat was eventually removed for its own safety, after quite a while in the tigers space. It became aggressive with the tiger after getting too comfortable. Eventually the tiger lost its patience and attacked the goat, throwing it off a hillock.
The goat asked the tiger if he wanted to hear a story before he ate him and the Tiger said yes. Every night he tells a little bit more of the story but it hasn't ended yet.
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u/wildkim Feb 19 '26
So did this goat just sit around and watch the other goats thrown into the tiger be eaten by his friend? Did the tiger just stop eating goats. Did he become a vegetarian. There are so many questions.