It's really not by accident that the powerful tiger was chosen the world's "favorite animal" when thousands of persons from over 70 countries voted their admiration of this animal via a poll conducted by Animal Planet. Tigers are truly awesome in their abilities! For example, it seems mysterious that a tiger weighing anywhere between 300 to 600 pounds can even make a horizontal jump of more than 30 feet as he pounces upon his prey!
The answer: Not by accident his Creator designed his back legs to be longer than his powerfully strong and dense forelegs—giving him that extra push in a jump. His speed when running is enhanced by the reduced size of his collarbone. It's another not-by¬accident design that allows the tiger to make wider strides due to more freedom of motion with his shoulder blades. Incidentally the tiger, who normally hunts at night, remains hidden from his prey as he stalks it—until the moment he is close enough to actually make the leap. Then, with careful aim, the seemingly fearless tiger at times will use his own weight to knock his prey off balance, even though his prey may weigh twice what he does! In fact some prey, weighing over a ton, have been brought down by a tiger one-sixth that weight! Other not by accident gifts include the placement and wisdom-of-use of the tiger's formidable teeth and retractable, always-sharp claws, plus his powerful shoulders, binocular sight, amazing whisker-aided sensory skills and acute hearing!
Infrasound instruments, used by scientists to detect the sounds of avalanches and earthquakes etc. long distances away, are not-by-accident standard equipment on tigers, who can hear not only well below the 20 Hz level which is the normal minimum heard by the human ear, but up to 60 kHz when our human maximum is only to 20kHz! Meanwhile a tiger can rotate its ears as needed, like a radar dish, to determine the direction that sounds of high or low pitch are coming from! A tiger's hearing is so acute it uses infrasound routinely to communicate whether it be warnings or calls. And since infrasound is not stopped by dense forest, mountains or even distance, it is ideal for localizing movement of prey, potential mates, or in determining needs of their tiger cubs.
Tiger cubs start life blind and helpless, weighing between 1 3/4 to 3 1/2 pounds less than half the size of most human newborns. But they grow quickly! In fact, a male tiger cub very possibly will weigh 100 pounds by the time he's six months old. And one reason is the not-by-accident care the Creator instilled in the mother tigress. She carefully chooses the place where she will give birth very secluded, well protected, having an abundance of prey. Then the mother spends the first weeks of their lives nursing her cubs 70% of the time! (In order to have adequate milk for their fast growth, she must increase her own nutrition by 50% while nursing so prey in the neighborhood would be well advised to get out of the area!) By the time the cubs are six to eight weeks old their mother is bringing prey and teaching her babies to begin to eat the solid food she provides. And since she hunts at night and the growing babies want to follow her (although they don't participate in the hunt as yet), it is not by accident they know where to find their mother in the dark. Their Designer gave the tiger scent glands between its toes, so the babies carefully follow the unique scent their mother expels and they don't lose their way. By the time the cubs are a year and a half they can hunt on their own, and when they reach two years most of them head out on their own with all the wisdom their mother knew to pass along, facing a world of life-and-death danger and challenges. Perhaps we would pay closer attention to our own loving Heavenly Parent—our God/Creator/Redeemer if we truly realized that eternal life-and-death issues are facing us as well in this world that is getting more dangerous and challenging as each day goes by!
"NOT BY ACCIDENT" (c) Juanita Kretschmar is used by permission and was first published in the book "Not By Accident" 3 pages 40-41
