Editorial staff Factrum shares photos of fat tigers with the reader and hopes that they will soon return to normal.

In the main zoo of the Chinese city of Harbin, today you can see tigers that weigh several times their norm.

All photos in post: © AsiaWire

According to the zoo workers themselves, the predators simply gained fat for the winter, almost like bears, and by the spring the excess weight will go away by itself.

However, zoologists sounded the alarm. World Organization for Animal Welfare President Will Travers says these tigers need urgent help

Travers believes that the tigers are either very seriously ill, or, despite all the prohibitions, they were fed by visitors to the Harbin Zoo.

Now the Harbin Zoo is home to about eight hundred Amur tigers, whose weight is much higher than the norm.

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When a cat falls from a great height, it lands on its stomach, not on its paws, which helps to survive.

When falling from a great height (above the seventh floor), the cat's body accelerates until it reaches its maximum speed, after which it goes into free fall. In this state, the cat no longer feels gravity and cannot determine where is up and where is down. Then she spreads her paws in different directions, increasing the surface of her body, like a parachute, and the speed of the fall decreases, and the chances of survival increase.

In 1870, the Belgian city of Liege hired 37 cats to deliver parcels to a nearby village.

It was a bad idea. The cats were not eager to provide services to the population: some of them deviated from the route and went about their business, some were driven into a tree by the dogs ... Many of the cats never reached their addressees, so they decided to refuse the cat's “services”.

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Photos of overweight Amur tigers in the Chinese zoo in Harbin are gaining popularity on the Web, Lenta.ru reports.

The Mirror edition drew attention to the frames with predators of unusual build. Some users have suggested that the tigers were fed on the occasion of the Chinese New Year. However, the zoo keepers assure that the animals are gaining weight in order to adapt to the harsh winter, and will return to shape in the spring.

Source mirror.co.uk

Pictures of plump predators amused VKontakte users and caused a lot of jokes and motivating posts. "This is a fat Amur tiger, add it to your wall and you will receive a test in physical training," - said in one of the publics of the social network.

Some defended the predators and began to ironically justify the physical condition of the tigers. “When my grandmother came to stay,” they jokingly noticed in one of the publics.

"It doesn't matter what is outside, the main thing is what is inside," the users of the social network supported the overweight animals.

As noted in the British version of the Metro newspaper, the exact cause of the physical changes is unknown. Zoo workers said that animals always get fat in winter to protect themselves from the cold.

Despite this, the president of the international organization for the protection of animals Born Free Foundation, Will Travers (Will Travers) said that he strongly disagrees with the staff of the Chinese zoo. "Tigers are obese, which indicates inappropriate and unnatural food for them. In my opinion, this is not funny or cute at all. These animals are bad," he said.

Six tiger cubs of the Chinese subspecies are growing up in the zoo of the Henan province of China. According to experts, this is the rarest of the remaining six subspecies of tigers: no more than 40 individuals are supposed to live in nature. The remaining 177 animals are kept in
Chinese zoos.

ON A NOTE

The kids, and these are three males and three females, are healthy and now the staff of the menagerie is taking care of them. The tiger cubs are fed formula and fresh meat six times a day.

At the same time, tigers that live in zoos have never been wild, which means that all individuals obtained in captivity have family ties.

KEEP IN MIND

The Chinese tiger is the smallest of the tigers. Males weigh from 127 to 177 kg, body length is about 2.5 meters.

For comparison, a Bengal tiger grows up to 3 meters or more.

TURNS OUT

The tiger is one of the largest land predators, second only to bears in mass. The total number is estimated at 5 thousand individuals and the most numerous subspecies (40% of the total population) is the Bengal tiger. Meanwhile, the size and weight of animals of all subspecies is different, and mainland individuals are usually larger than island ones. The largest is the Amur tiger, 95 percent of the population of which (which is about 500 animals) lives in our country. It is also worth noting that today tigers inhabit only 7% of the original range, and the largest number has survived only in India.

IT IS IMPORTANT

Scientists identify nine subspecies of tigers, of which six survived by the beginning of the 21st century: Amur, Bengal, Indo-Chinese, Malay, Sumatran and Chinese. All of them differ in the number and size of the stripes, as well as the brightness of the color and the color of the coat.

IT IS INTERESTING

The characteristic protective coloration allows the tiger to remain unnoticed in the thickets. Moreover, the striped pattern is also present on the skin, and if you shave off the fur, then dark wool grows on the dark stripes, and the pattern is completely restored. Their location is unique to each individual animal, and thus can be used to identify individuals, similar to fingerprints in humans.

The Amur tiger is the northernmost and largest subspecies. It is found in the Far East, in the Primorsky and Khabarovsk Territories, as well as in small numbers in the territory of northeastern China. Bengali lives in Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and Myanmar. According to information from the Indian government, the population of this subspecies is approximately 2000 animals. But the largest population of the Indo-Chinese tiger settled in Malaysia. It is not known exactly how many of the 1200 animals are there, but this subspecies can still be found in Cambodia, Myanmar, southern China, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam. Another subspecies - the Malay tiger - lives exclusively in the southern (Malaysian) part of the Malay Peninsula. This subspecies was isolated in 2004. Recent counts have shown the presence of 600 individuals. The next subspecies - Sumatran - is also endemic, but already on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. The wild population is estimated at 400 animals. By the way, recent genetic studies have shown the presence of unique genetic markers in the genotype of this subspecies. This means that on the basis of this subspecies, over time, a separate species of feline may arise. The life span of a tiger in nature is up to 26 years.

Amur tigers living in the zoo in the Chinese city of Harbin gained a lot of weight, which visitors could not help but notice. Fat animals have become less mobile, and spend most of their time in a supine position. The zoo staff noted that weight gain is associated with the winter period, when many animals gain weight. According to them, by the spring, the predators should return to their normal form. The international organization for the protection of animals, the Born Free Foundation, has a completely different opinion on this matter, where they believe that the tigers urgently need help.

According to Will Travers, President of the Born Free Foundation, excess weight is the result of poor diet, poor attitudes and harsh living conditions. According to visitors, the tigers grew fat due to the fact that they were often fed by tourists, and the writer and traveler Jarryd Salem noted that in this zoo, which contains about 800 Amur tigers, the employees themselves overfeed the animals with chicken, goat meat and beef ...