Research overview: tiger habitat selection, cover, and water

Within their territories tigers select habitat features that aid stalking, provide shade, and offer water. This overview synthesizes telemetry and camera-trap studies showing that tigers favor dense cover near water, ravines and riverine forest that funnel prey, and edges between grassland and woodland where deer concentrate. It reviews how tigers thermoregulate by resting in shade and water during hot weather, how they use terrain to ambush prey, and how the spatial arrangement of cover, prey, and water within a territory shapes daily movement. The synthesis connects fine-scale habitat use to the larger pattern of territoriality and prey density. For wildlife photographers it explains where to expect tigers within a reserve, why pools, streams, and shady thickets are reliable hotspots, and how the cat reads the landscape for cover and ambush opportunities.