Research overview: tiger kill rates and energetic demands

How often a tiger must kill depends on prey size, the cat's body mass, reproductive state, and competition at carcasses. This overview synthesizes GPS-cluster and observational studies estimating that a tiger kills large prey every several days to a week, consuming much of a carcass over multiple visits while defending it from scavengers. It reviews how females raising cubs increase their kill rate, how very large kills extend the interval between hunts, and how loss of carcasses to other tigers or scavengers raises energetic costs. The synthesis links individual foraging to the prey biomass needed to sustain a breeding population. For enthusiasts it explains the rhythm of feeding, why a tiger may linger near a kill for days, and how the arithmetic of kills per year scales up to the prey densities that determine how many tigers a forest can hold.