Sabertoothman

December 2022

Hello, I'm UtherSRG. I noticed that you recently removed content from Dhole without adequately explaining why. In the future, it would be helpful to others if you described your changes to Wikipedia with an accurate edit summary. If this was a mistake, don't worry; the removed content has been restored. If you would like to experiment, please use your sandbox. If you think I made a mistake, or if you have any questions, please reply here. Thanks. UtherSRG (talk) 17:10, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

I deleted that content again and gave an explanation this time, but I couldn't get more detailed sue to a character limit. So I'll give a more detailed explanation here.

I deleted the content on the Bor Wildlife Sanctuary study becaue of some of the methodology used in it, the waterhole count. Waterhole counts are not reliable methods of counting wildlife because they rely on the fallacy that every single animal in a vast area can be counted. As a result, you get wrong results. And the results involving the tigers and dholes is particulary wrong because AJT Johnsingh in his book "On Jim Corbett's Trail and Other Tales from Tree-Tops" he mentioned that the idea of dholes suppressing tiger populations is wrong because tiger populations in places that also had dholes saw significant increases in tiger numbers after Project Tiger came into existence. Making that conclusion of this paper's authors very questionable.

I deleted the content on dholes killing tigers because to this day, none of those stories have been confirmed to be true, and so talking about them as if they're proven fact isn't education, it's pushing beliefs onto people whether intentionally or unintentionally. So if you even want to mention them, you need to tell people the stories haven't been scientifically confirmed. That way people don't get the wrong idea.

The reason I deleted the content from that one study is because most of what the authors found was related more to the dhole's relationship with leopards rather than tigers, and when it comes to the interaction between a tiger an a pack of 10 dholes, I don't actually see that as the dholes being able to deter a tiger. When you read the description of the interaction, they say it approached the pack rather than stalked them. Because it didn't stalk them, it's likely the tiger in question didn't actually want to kill one, in part because the dholes already knew it was there and so it was pointless to get the element of surprise. Sabertoothman (talk) 19:47, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

@2600:4040:936A:BC00

This is a source saying the stories of dholes killing tigers are unconfirmed. And ironically, this is on the page's list of external sites. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/radical-conservation/2015/jun/25/dhole-asia-endangered-tiger-ignored

And as for waterhole counts being unreliable, here it is from K. Ullas Karanth, one of India's top tiger scientists from his book which I'm having a hard time citing. On page 111 https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/A_View_from_the_Machan/W6ks4b0l7NgC?q=I+learnt+that+tigers+routinely+prey+on+adult+gaur+five+times+their+own+weight&safe=strict&gbpv=1&bsq=waterhole%20census#f=false

That said, I rest my case, and will delete the content once again. Sabertoothman (talk) 07:52, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

@2600:4040:936A:BC00

And some more info I forgot to bring up on page 48:https://www.google.com/books/edition/On_Jim_Corbett_s_Trail_and_Other_Tales_f/KoCejHiL2CIC?q=dholes+vs+tiger&safe=strict&gbpv=1#f=false Sabertoothman (talk) 07:57, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

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I agree with UtherSG above.

The Bor Wildlife Sanctuary study is a published, journal article in a scientific journal written by 4 biologists. It is most definitely a valid and relevant source for this information. The waterhole count involved 17 waterholes monitored by 24 hideouts, monitored annually on a May day for 12 years from 1998 to 2009; I am not certain that this source is as weak as you claim. If you feel that the study is weak, you cannot simply remove it because it is a valid, relevant third-person source. You may add information or sources that concur with your viewpoint. In fact, there already is a source in the article (the entire previous paragraph starting from "Tigers are dangerous opponents..." that supports your viewpoint (that tigers suppress dholes but not vice-versa). Therefore, unless, a better reason is given for its removal, I am placing that study back in the article. I will add a notation that the population counts were based on waterhole counts.

The sources stating that reports of dholes killing tigers are valid, scientific journal articles in the Journal of the Bombay Natural History, an established natural history journal, a book published by the same scientific society (the Prater book), a reference in a book by renowned naturalist George Schaller. Also, all of these are reliable, recent late 20th century sources (not 18th century hunter's stories) - the Ventakataraman article is from 1995, the Prater book was published in 1971, Schaller's book 1984. If you think that the reports of dholes killing tigers are not confirmed you need to find a source that states that because this wikiarticle now has scientific articles and books (i.e., valid, strong, third-party sources) saying that dholes, in fact, have killed tigers. Unless you can do that, saying that all reports of dholes killing tigers are not scientifically confirmed is only opinion, not fact. I am putting these valid, scientific articles back in.

The sentence about the 10 dholes deterring a tiger is closely paraphrased from the source. Venkataran states "Ten dholes were sufficient to deter a tiger from confronting the pack." You state that "I don't actually see that as the dholes being able to deter a tiger" referring to the observation of 10 dholes deterring the tiger was not stalking the dholes. That is your opinion. The author of the article concluded otherwise. Also, the tiger could very well have been stalking the dholes, at least before it was detected by the single dhole which gave the alarm call (the article is a review of other researchers' sightings and other scientific articles and books and only gives a brief description of each interaction study it examined). You have not provided a good reason to remove this sentence - it is a conclusion from a study by a biologist in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. I am putting it back in.

Please have a very good day