The Food Chain

We were reading a book about the food chain at the Claude Moore nature center today. The kids wanted to know if Tigers had any predators. The answer is that tigers are apex predators. Say what? We learned a new term. Here it is:

Apex predators (also alpha predators, superpredators, or top-level predators) are predators that, as adults, are not normally preyed upon in the wild in significant parts of their range. Apex predator species are often at the end of long food chains, where they have a crucial role in maintaining the health of ecosystems.

Of course, this takes into account "the wild." Their only predator, we determined, is a human hunter.