What is the largest prey that any Bear has killed?

[brobear]

What large animals have been killed by bears? I'm pretty sure that the polar bear takes the trophy, even when considering prehistoric bears. As for the brown bear, he has been known to hunt and kill full-grown male moose and, less often, bison. Back in the golden-age of the American West, the grizzlies of the Great Plains regularly stalked bison. 

[OldGreenGrolar]

Some food for thought: If belugas, narwhales, walruses, and bearded seals are classified as predators then the polar bear is the only bear recorded to hunt another predator larger than itself.

Old bull walruses sometimes turn carnivorous and feed on bearded seals as well as beluga and narwhale calves. Most of them hunt clams. Belugas and narwhales hunt fish and so do bearded seals. Given these sea mammals have skin thicker than land mammals and blubber to protect their vital organs, they are no easy prey for polar bears.

Male polar bears from Svalbard are slightly heavier than bearded seals while bull walruses can be two or three times the weight of a male polar bear. There is at least one video of a polar bear killing a beluga in the open waters.

Polar bear weights recap:


wildfact.com/forum/topic-polar-bears-data-pictures-and-videos?pid=168905#pid168905

Female bearded seals can weigh up to 800 pounds that is similar to in weight to a male polar bear from Svalbard and heavier than female polar bears. However, if female polar bears can kill belugas five times their weight, killing a bearded seal is no problem for them.



While bull walruses and even females are hard to kill even on land some polar bears have learned to throw rocks at them

[brobear]

I remember in the old AVA forum, we had one video of a big male polar bear attacking and killing a full-grown bull walrus. This video was taken by a Russian ( biologist if I remember correctly ). It was ( at that time probably over 10 years ago ), the only video of such an event. Nevertheless, that single video proves that polar bears, although perhaps not often, can and will attack and kill big bull walruses.

[OldGreenGrolar]

May 30, 2022 5:53:42 GMT -5 brobear said:

I remember in the old AVA forum, we had one video of a big male polar bear attacking and killing a full-grown bull walrus. This video was taken by a Russian ( biologist if I remember correctly ). It was ( at that time probably over 10 years ago ), the only video of such an event. Nevertheless, that single video proves that polar bears, although perhaps not often, can and will attack and kill big bull walruses.

Some Foxe Basin males are known to successfully hunt walrus, which may explain in part their extraordinarily good condition. While it is doubtful if the killing of walrus is routine amongst males, many bears may feed off the carcasses taken by males that hunt successfully — including subadults, females with cubs and cubs on their own for the first time.

polarbearscience.com/2014/02/12/foxe-basin-polar-bear-status-another-stable-population/