Amputee Tiger.

By Miss Cellania in Animal on Jul 5, 2007 at 8:35 am

A rare Sumatran tiger foiled poachers by escaping from a trap and surviving without his foot. The tiger was photographed in March and May by motion-sensor cameras in the Tesso Nilo national park.

In normal circumstances the beast would have been expected to die from blood loss or an infection, or simply to starve to death because of a severely reduced capacity to hunt.

However, to the astonishment of conservationists, the tiger appears to have recovered from the loss and is managing to catch enough food to keep it healthy. “His condition seemed quite stable,” Sunarto, a WWF biologist in Sumatra, said. “He has been surviving – I don’t know how. It’s very surprising he’s still alive.”

The Sumatran tiger is the most endangered tiger in the world. Link -via Fark