How Do Tigers Communicate?

Video Transcript

"Hi, this is Gary Wilson, at America's Teaching Zoo at Moorpark College. Tigers communicate in a variety of ways. They use all the different senses; smell, hearing, sight, touch even, so and tigers are very much like your house cat at home. Have you ever had your cat come up and rub against your leg? That's a greeting, and tigers do that too. When they meet each other they'll rub their cheeks on each other. They have a scent gland on their neck and they're rubbing that scent on each other. They'll also put that scent on objects, so that when a tiger comes along it smells it and knows that another tiger has been there. And then, if they want to keep other tigers away they'll scent mark with urine, and even they'll use scent glands in the pads of their feet. So, a male tiger trying to protect his territory will jump up on a tree, grab the tree with his claws and scratch it with his hind claws, and make that visual marker of his of claw marks, but also get the scent from his feet into onto that tree. Here at America's Teaching Zoo we greet our tiger. She when we walk up to the tiger she greets us with a prusing it's called, or we call it a chuff. And we try and, when she's doing that; when she makes the sound it sounds like foo hoo hoo, foo hoo hoo, and it's a greeting. It's asking who are you, what are you doing? And so, she's asking who are we so we chuff back to her; let her know that we're friendly."