|
Post by brobear on Jan 24, 2023 8:13:59 GMT -5
A particular fanboy is proving that Amur tigers do not hunt full-grown male brown bears. His words from his site; quote, "But wherever gaur, wild buffalo and banteng are abundant, tigers prefer them over smaller prey, and routinely kill large adults of these species. Scientific studies all consistently show that tigers prefer the LARGEST prey animals to hunt. The tigers anatomy is specifically built for hunting big game animals (large bovines, even elephants and rhinos), more so than lions." (posted 1/12/23). *So, the tiger will always look for the biggest prey with the most meat (according to his words). The full-grown male Ussuri brown bear has more meat than the adolescent brown bears or moon bears that tigers actually hunt. More meat, in fact, than an old male wild boar. Consider this; it was confirmed long ago that adult male tigers hunt and kill moon bears, adolescent brown bears, an occasional adult brown she-bear, and an occasional adult male wild boar. *If even the biggest male tigers ever hunted and killed adult male brown bears, this would have been confirmed many decades ago - especially if they were the tigers' first choice of prey animals. However, right up to this present day, there does not exist even one single confirmed account of an adult male brown bear ever killed by a tiger. In fact (see domainofthebears.proboards.com/thread/1459/biggest-bear-confirmed-tiger ), I have doubts that any bear weighing over 400 pounds has ever been killed by a tiger. 400-plus-pound brown she-bears and big 400-plus-pound Ussuri black bears are probably passed over when the tiger is looking for bear prey. But, if a big male tiger does kill these (questionable) it's a sure bet that these big bears are always and only taken from ambush.
|
|
|
Post by brobear on Jan 25, 2023 5:17:02 GMT -5
SOCIAL ORGANIZATION OF THE NORTHERN TUNGUS BY SERGEI MIKHAILOVICH SHIROKOGOROV- RUSSIAN ANTHROPOLOGIST "IF A TIGER OCCUPIES A CERTAIN SMALL VALLEY, NO BEAR OR NO MAN MAY COME TO DISTURB IT” “NEITHER DOES THE TIGER GO TO THE VALLEYS OCCUPIED BY THE LARGE BEAR"
|
|
|
Post by brobear on Jan 25, 2023 5:20:58 GMT -5
"THE PLACES BELONGING TO THE BEAR MAY EASILY BE RECOGNIZED BY MAN, BY THE TIGER, OR BY OTHER BEARS”
|
|
|
Post by brobear on Jan 25, 2023 5:24:43 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by brobear on Jan 26, 2023 2:28:11 GMT -5
A Dance of Death: Tigers and Bears Battle in Northeast Asia - (credits to Montezuma) By John Goodrich, Ph.D. - Chief Scientist; Director, Tiger Program panthera.org/blog-post/dance-death-tigers-and-bears-battle-northeast-asia In this blog, Panthera Tiger Program Director Dr. John Goodrich transports us to the snowy regions of northeast Asia — the home of wolves, bears, leopards and Siberian tigers. After stumbling upon a shocking tiger kill, he recounts how he began to understand the complex relationship between tigers and bears in this challenging environment. Navigate the snowy oak forests with Dr. Goodrich as he brings to light the important conservation implications of these interactions. A few decades ago, when I lived and worked in northeast Asia, I was tracking a male tiger named Dima that we had captured and fitted with a radio collar a few months before. He was the biggest tiger we would catch in 20 years of research in the area, and at 455 lbs, the circumference of his head was bigger than my waist and the base of his tail was as thick as my thigh. He had been moving through an area where people had summer gardens and grazed cattle, so I was having a look around to make sure he wasn’t getting himself into trouble. But what I found that day blew my mind. I followed his tracks in light patches of early spring snow. Here — we saw he meandered through a park-like oak forest. And there — suddenly, as he approached the edge of a steep embankment, his tracks became spaced very close together. He crouched into a stalk. And when I looked over the embankment, I was shocked. Before me was a large, partially-eaten brown bear sow.
|
|
|
Post by brobear on Jan 26, 2023 2:29:28 GMT -5
Continued... I jumped down to examine the carcass and immediately noted a single, bloody hole in her neck that was clearly an entry wound. Her tracks showed that she had ambled along the base of the embankment and seemed to suddenly fall down dead, with no sign of the struggle one would expect from a huge tiger killing a bear nearly his own size. I concluded the bear had been shot and Dima just took advantage of a free meal, but why hadn’t the hunter claimed such a valuable prize? Then I turned the bear over to inspect the exit would. To my surprise, I found two more entry wounds! I revised my conclusion — Dima had leapt from the bank onto the bear, dispatching her with a single bite to the nape of her neck, almost before she was even aware of his presence (one of his canine teeth had broken prior to our capturing him, hence only three bite wounds). The power and skill required to do that was unimaginable. I collected some samples and vacated the area, hoping Dima would return to finish his meal, which he did, though it took him several days to devour such a large animal.
|
|
|
Post by brobear on Jan 26, 2023 2:30:47 GMT -5
Continued... Fascinated, I went home and began combing through local literature and speaking with my colleagues on the subject. There were numerous reports of tigers preying on both brown bears and Asiatic black bears, but the relationship, it seems, was not that simple; there were also reports of bears killing tigers. As the years progressed and we tracked both bears and tigers, the picture of a complex relationship emerged. The largest brown bears — and we recorded bears with weights up to 800 lbs in the area — would usurp kills from tigers and even track them from kill to kill (meeting those bears when searching for tiger kills is another story for another day!). In one case, tracks in the snow told the story of a tigress and bear reluctantly sharing a red deer the tigress had killed. The tracks suggested some bluffing and blustering on the part of both species, but no actual fighting. Rather, it seemed when the tiger had eaten its fill for the day, the bear was able to scare it off, but when the tigress returned hungry and the bear’s stomach was full, the bear would yield to the cat. Once, my colleague Ivan came home from tracking a tigress and told the story of how it spent the better part of a day trying unsuccessfully to pull a black bear with cubs from her winter den.
|
|
|
Post by brobear on Jan 26, 2023 2:32:28 GMT -5
Dima killed several more bears in the following years that we tracked him, and not all kills were so clean and efficient as my first discovery. At the site of his next kill, another female brown bear, I found a gruesome scene with a huge swath of flattened vegetation where the bear fought for its life. Small trees had been bitten in half, and those that remained standing were splattered with blood. After the fight, Dima spent four days in the area and completely consumed the bear. Why did Dima take such risks? Bears are among the most powerful animals I know, with formidable teeth and claws. Wouldn’t sticking to red deer and sika deer make more sense? While we will never know for sure, I suspect his predation on bears served another purpose than just filling his belly. Likely, he was taking out the competition — the same animals that might kill his cubs or steal the kills of one of the three tigresses with which he shared his territory.
|
|
|
Post by brobear on Jan 26, 2023 2:33:39 GMT -5
Understanding these types of relationships is important to conservation. For example, if we are working to recover tigers, what are the implications of bears taking their kills (reduced energy intake might mean lower survival of tigers and their cubs)? What impacts will tigers have on bear (and wolf) populations? Amur tigers have recovered from an estimated 40 individuals in the wild about 75 years ago to an estimated 400 today. But during that time, for instance, the local wolf population has plummeted, likely due to displacement and predation by tigers. We don’t want another species to go extinct due to our recovering tigers. While this has not been a concern because both wolves and bears are widely distributed across Eurasia, it is a concern in the southern region where the world’s remaining 40 or so Amur leopards overlap with tigers. Indeed, during our work there, a tiger did kill a leopard. Research in India has shown potentially significant impacts of tigers on leopard abundance and behavior, and that will be the subject of a future blog post. But in the snowy forests of Asia, far at the northern edge of the tiger's range, I saw firsthand the dance between two massive predators — bears and tigers. It was a dance that resulted in death, food, struggle — and for me, insight. Now, I could better understand what it means to protect not only tigers, but all animals. ______________________________________________________________________ Dima or Dale... quote: "He was the biggest tiger we would catch in 20 years of research in the area, and at 455 lbs, the circumference of his head was bigger than my waist and the base of his tail was as thick as my thigh." Quote: "Dima killed several more bears in the following years that we tracked him, and not all kills were so clean and efficient as my first discovery. At the site of his next kill, another female brown bear, I found a gruesome scene with a huge swath of flattened vegetation where the bear fought for its life. Small trees had been bitten in half, and those that remained standing were splattered with blood. After the fight, Dima spent four days in the area and completely consumed the bear." Quote: "There were numerous reports of tigers preying on both brown bears and Asiatic black bears, but the relationship, it seems, was not that simple; there were also reports of bears killing tigers. As the years progressed and we tracked both bears and tigers, the picture of a complex relationship emerged. The largest brown bears — and we recorded bears with weights up to 800 lbs in the area — would usurp kills from tigers and even track them from kill to kill..." _____________________________________________________________________ *Dale (or Dima) was a huge male Amur tiger with a very rare and unusual habit. Whether he had acquired a taste for bear flesh or for some specific purpose, his main choice of prey were bears. He, like all Amur tigers, when he hunted bears, always chose a moon bear, an adolescent brown bear, or an adult female brown bear - always a bear smaller than himself. Evidence shows that most often, after ambushing the bear, he made a quick clean kill (quote) "almost before she was even aware of his presence..." The evidence also shows that, when Dale ambushed the adult she-bear, but was unable to kill her quickly, then the wounded she-bear was able to give the tiger a difficult battle. It also shows that, where there is a fight between a tiger and a bear, there is blood. Quote: "At the site of his next kill, another female brown bear, I found a gruesome scene with a huge swath of flattened vegetation where the bear fought for its life. Small trees had been bitten in half, and those that remained standing were splattered with blood."
Fact: Dale never ambushed an adult male brown bear. No tiger ever does. Fact: Tigers and bears fight with teeth and claws. The fight scene will always be splattered with blood.
|
|
|
Post by brobear on Jan 26, 2023 9:07:57 GMT -5
Average mature Amur tiger (contemporary) - 418.9 pounds. Average mature Amur tigress (contemporary) - 266.8 pounds. ________________________________________________ Quote: A few decades ago, when I lived and worked in northeast Asia, I was tracking a male tiger named Dima that we had captured and fitted with a radio collar a few months before. He was the biggest tiger we would catch in 20 years of research in the area, and at 455 lbs, the circumference of his head was bigger than my waist and the base of his tail was as thick as my thigh. *Conclusion: This has me convinced that our weight collection, concerning the Amur tiger, is very near accurate.
|
|
|
Post by brobear on Jan 27, 2023 14:48:57 GMT -5
I drew this up myself, but I believe that it is very close to accurate: Male Brown Bear / Male human equivilant:
0 until his first year - cub / from baby to toddler to young child. 1 year until he reaches 2 - yearling / child roughly 8 yrs. old. 2 years old until he reaches 4.5 years old - adolescent or juvenile. / from 9 to 12 yrs. old. 4.5 years old until he reaches 6 - subadult. / teenage boy from 13 to 15 yrs. old. 6 years old until he reaches 9 - young adult./ teenage boy from 16 to 17 yrs. old. 9 years old until he reaches 20 - full-grown male bear. / from 18 to 60 yr. old man. 20 years old and after - elderly (over the hill). ___________________________________
Average fully-grown male Ussuri brown bear ( 9 years+ ) - 631.4 pounds. Average fully-grown male Ussuri brown bear ( 10 years+) - 657 pounds. Average fully-grown female Ussuri brown bear (7 years+) - 415 pounds. *A 7 year old female brown bear is a full-grown bear. She is roughly the size of a large male Ussuri black bear. The female Ussuri brown bear and the male Ussuri black bear are (imo) the size limit for a bear as tiger prey. Both are taken by ambush only.
|
|