The persistence of wildlife populations largely depends on females successfully rearing young through the earliest, most vulnerable period. During this period, mothers must balance the costs of home range maintenance, food acquisition, and protection of cubs. We monitored a GPS-collared Amur tigress Panthera tigris altaica for 4 months prior to and 4 months after giving birth to assess how home range size, activity budget, movements, and hunting behavior changed between these periods. After birth, home range size collapsed as activities were centered around the den site. With cubs, the tigress spent slightly less time moving, but greatly increased the rate at which she traveled. Kill rate, handling time, and daily consumption rates did not change significantly, but there was an indication that larger prey were killed during the natal denning period than in other periods. When cubs left the den site and started travelling with their mother, the female was able to increase time spent with cubs, reducing risk of predation. We hypothesize that some of the behaviors of this tigress, which appeared likely to increase cub survival, may be universal across the species, but others will be dependent on ecological parameters specific to the site.

中文翻译：

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老虎如何平衡饲养幼崽的对立约束？

野生动植物种群的持久性在很大程度上取决于雌性能否在最早，最脆弱的时期成功地抚育年轻人。在此期间，母亲必须平衡家庭养护，食物获取和幼崽保护的费用。我们监控了GPS领环的东北虎Panthera tigris altaica在分娩前四个月和分娩后四个月进行评估，以评估这两个时期之间家庭范围的大小，活动预算，活动和狩猎行为的变化。出生后，由于活动集中在巢穴周围，房屋范围缩小。有了小熊，小老虎花的时间稍少一些，但大大增加了她的出行速度。杀死率，处理时间和每日食用率没有明显变化，但是有迹象表明，在出生期间，被杀死的猎物比其他时期要大。当幼崽离开巢穴开始和母亲一起旅行时，雌性能够增加与幼崽在一起的时间，从而减少了被捕食的风险。我们假设这种老虎的某些行为似乎可能增加幼崽的存活率，但在整个物种中可能是普遍存在的，