Male tigers don’t have a reputation for being good dads, but evidence suggests they may be more involved than even zoologists traditionally believe. Trail-cam footage showing a male tiger traveling with his family, a female tiger and her two seven-month-old cubs, suggesting he’s there for more than just siring.
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“Even among zoologists, there is still a widespread belief that male tigers literally do nothing but eat cubs, including their own children. Nonsense,” writes Sergey Kolchin, the bear and tiger biologist who shared the video to Instagram. “Resident male fathers not only provide a safe space for females with their broods by displacing strangers, but also interact in a friendly manner with the cubs. In the Russian Far East, zoologists Anatoly Yudakov and Igor Nikolaev were the first to suggest this in the 1970s, while observing tigers by their tracks in the snow. This hypothesis has subsequently been repeatedly confirmed by camera traps and direct observations by naturalists.”
In this footage the male tiger brings up the rear, and he’s very aware of his surroundings, even noticing the camera and giving it a wide berth.
See a tiger family walk past a trail cam in Russia’s far east here: