Understanding the Brown Bear-tiger ecology in Amur in the 21st century according to reliable data and reasoning
(The proof why Ussuri Brown bears dominate Siberian tigers: a detailed reply to every juvenile tiger-fan)
by MontezumaTo be honest, if one is in the seek to acknowledge the true dominant animal in the Amur taiga logically and scientific based, he would behold it as the bear. But why?
The brown bear tiger ecology is not a unique and sole phenomenon of ursid-feline interspecific relationship. The current science is well aware of regular bear-cougar, bear-lynx, and bear-leopard relations in much detail whereas bear-cave lion, bear-american lion, bear-sabertooth cat relations are known to some extent by some authentic evidence. Though species of the same animal vary in physical and psychological attributes they indeed share a common nature which is evident from their typically similar behaviour. To understand the tiger-brown bear relation one should not simply overlook the other bear-cat behaviour to each other for multiple good reasons.
There exists no doubt that modern day American black bears dominate cougars
(Panthera, Murphy et al . 1998 , Allen et al), Sloth bears and Asiatic Black bears dominate kill disputes from Leopards
(Brown 1993, Thapar, Samarasinha 2005), Brown bears dominate lynxes
(Miha Krofel, I. Kos, Klemen Jerina 2012); apart from that in prehistoric times, Cave bear, especially Steppe brown bears, were known to dominate cave lions which resulted in many adult cave lion deaths
(Turner and Ant´on, 1997, Bocherens 2015, Esmark 2019), and the Short-faced bears dominated large felids
(Wayne, 2021) including Panthera atrox
(Leidy, 1853), Panthera onca
(Linnaeus, 1758) and Smilodon fatalis
(Leidy, 1868). So if modern and prehistoric bears can and are known to dominate large felids smaller than themselves, would it be logical as well to conclude that brown bear dominate tigers in Amur in the same way and for the same reason their extant and extinct cousins did? After all, Brown bears, Black bears, Sloth bears, Cave bears, Steppe Brown bears and Short-faced bears are ursids and tigers, cougars, leopards, lynx, cave lions, sabertooth cats and American lions are felines. This conceptual point alone counts a lot for its rationality and logic.
So Ussuri brown bears basically dominate tigers including adult males? Yes, that's quite true and it's not me saying that it's a scientific opinion as well.
In the beginning I have explained a very good reason for that but now we see some studies as well. Brown bears and tigers are said to avoid each other but it does not seem true for the adult male brown bear as he is the largest mammalian carnivore in Amur taiga who with his size intimidates other creature that he sees. The opinion that bears are afraid to announce their presence to tigers is not true since they, especially males, stay calm in tiger areas
(Abramov) and they always announce their presence to tigers
(Batalov) and tigers simply try to avoid those males
(Batalov, Baikov, Linkov, Aramliev, TSTP) and by tree marking bears indicate indirect aggression towards tiger
(Kochlin, Svetlana) as male bears aren't afraid of tigers
(Batalov, Linkov). And why should adult males be afraid of tigers? The avoidance of tigers and the bear's aggressive tree marking clearly indicate the confidence the bear feels and hesitation the tiger feels in their relations. Though Abramov said that large bears try not to meet adult tigers recent evidence suggests the complete opposite.
In the northern hemisphere, the brown bear is the dominant kleptoparasite
(Krofel et al. 2012), whose kill no one disputes except for a larger bear.
(Wayne 2021) due to its size and aggression. Most felids can defend their kill when confronted with small and mid-sized scavengers
(Palomares and Caro 1999; Jobin et al. 2000), but they are defenseless against confrontations with larger scavengers such as bears. As other cats invariably lose their prey to larger bears, so do tigers including adult males lose from adult male brown bears.
(Miquelle 2005, Tkachenko 2012). It's quite interesting to see that bears basically benefit from tigers presence as tigers provide the male bears free meat
(Miquelle) by hunting and getting usurped as Amur lacks wolves which passively feeds bears in other cold regions of the world. Bears track tigers and lynxes track to track
(Seryodkin, Goodrich, Kucherenko 1977, Kostoglod, Matthesien and Hornocker, et al 2001) and when a male brown bear approaches the tiger simply goes away
(Linkov). Bear kleptoparasitism on tigers is indeed significant as up to 35% of tiger kills are lost to bears
(Seryodkin) and this can affect tiger numbers and activity shaping
(Krofel, Goldrich). This simply established brown bear dominance over tigers
(Miquelle). Apart from evidence and report, what else reason makes it true that brown bears dominate tigers in kill disputes? Let me explain. Bears are dominant scavengers all over the world from America's to Eurasia; they clearly have a face-to-face countering temper and such size to fit their prey stealing nature from other predators. With undisputed and all-acknowledged information that a 300 pound black bear can displace a 200 pound cougar with a 100 pound advantage. A 250 pound sloth bear can do the same against a 150 pound leopard with a 100 pound weight advantage etc. All agree on this but why would it be not agreeable that a 600 pound brown bear can displace a 400 pound tiger with the weight advantage of 200 pounds? Sloth and black bear with a 100 pound weight advantage so why cannot a brown bear win from tiger which have even 200 pound advantage or more? Why would be the bear fearful to track tigers if his cousins aren't? What logic can basically fit in except in accepting that male bears do displace adult tigers. In North America, wolves and cougars passively feed bears, in Europe, lynxes and wolves do and wolves are indirect bear feeders in Siberia; and with the lack of wolves in Amur, tigers serve bears indirectly with food along with bears. We have already known various sources of bears tracking and stealing food from tigers and lynxes but interesting bears track tigers in the same way as they do to lynxes showing they are as confident in tracking tigers as much they are in lynxes
(Kostoglod, 1976) as evident from similar behaviour in tracing them which is indeed a noteworthy point. So to conclude, male bears generally dominate tigers in kill disputes as they do to wolf packs.
In animal dominance, when one affects 'elevation occupation' and 'daily activity patterns' or 'population numbers' of others so it means the victim is subordinate to the former. For example in North America Grizzlies generally dominate black bears as American black bears are reported to avoid brown bears by being active at a different period
(Aune 1994); and in Amur, brown bears force Asiatic black bears as well as being in the dominant position since Asiatic black bears avoided brown bears by occupying higher elevations and being more diurnal where they coexisted and compared to brown bears, Asiatic black bears behaved more diurnally in order to avoid. Cougars, as generally dominated by wolves move to higher elevations in the presence of wolves who occupy lower elevation and before the introduction of tigers or in areas where tigers are not present, leopards were nocturnal and morning and evening, while after the reintroduction of tigers or in areas where tigers are already present, leopards become diurnal to reduce overlap with tiger activity
(Mondal et al, 2012; Steinmetz et al, 2013) since tigers dominate leopards. Leopards are more active diurnally than tigers in the Changbai Mountains, China to avoid the nocturnal tiger. In case of brown bears, there is no single proof that tigers either effect their daily activity or elevation since brown bears in Amur have their behaviour totally normal requiring no change from external force
(Tkachenko).The tiger doesn't affect bear numbers either as bears also increase in those areas where tigers increase as research shows
(Cui Fandi, 2021) and the biggest threat to bear population as always in Amur is the man hunting which is increase unfortunately
(Pikunov, Seryodkin). In contrast, bears do effect tigers as their kleptoparasitism can negatively effect tigers numbers
(Goldrich) and bears pose a great to tigers, especially tigresses and cubs
(Pyrnn, Kinsella 2021). In fact, it's highly noteworthy that bears reduce man-eating tigers populations which clearly show that do influence tiger activity as well
(Corbett 1957) and why not since bear killing of tiger cut the life off various adult and young tiger short
(Alexander Kulikov and Yury Dunishenko, 1999). So in this aspect, although the data isn't much abounding as in other interspecific relations of predators, we can conclude that brown bears dominate tigers without opposing research and logic. Indeed, the largest carnivore always dominates the smaller, the opposite is simply absurd.
There exists an opinion that large bears stand less chance against large tigers
(Aramliev) and an average tiger is stronger than an average bear
(Kucherenko) and it has been expressed in a few more instances as well. However, if analysed by facts and logic, that's untrue
(Krechmar 2021) as male bears are stronger than male tigers
(Sysoev) and sows are than tigresses
(Kulikov) and it fight between males the male bear is more likely to come off as a victor against a male tiger
(Krechmar 2021, Valiant, Sibirica 1993) and that's why there are such few instance of adult male tigers dying to adult male bears are recorded
(TSTP, Abramov). Furthermore, as a rule large predators generally dominate smaller predators all over the world and since smaller cats always lose to large bears in fights it's totally absurd to assume that a smaller tiger can beat a larger bear. That's why there is no such factual opinion or authentic case ever recorded.
After seeing and understanding the logical fact that why the former is dominant over the latter in brown bear-tiger ecology in Amur from the above evidence I would like to use the sloth bear and tiger relations as a rational and logical argument to make the brown bear tiger picture more clear by exemplifying that to show why it's wise to view brown bears as dominant creatures over tigers. Fortunately, unlike the Amur scenario, the bear-tiger one in India is clearer and known. Before I start, I would firstly declare that in this interaction, the tiger simply have an upper hand in a fight to death match due to its clearly larger size and sloth bear don't dominate tigers as brown bears due to the clear size difference. In India sloth bears and tigers live side by side with occasionally behaving aggressively with each other where tigers hunt them in ambush and bears fight and chase them in frontal fight. Although one might presume that tigers dominate sloth bears as they do to leopards, but that, in fact, is very much different. Sloth bears constitute a small portion in the tiger diet since tigers, generally, don't hunt sloth bears
(Richard lydekker, Panna and Chitral NP tiger's diet chart, Tej Kumar). The sloth bears behaviour is never shaped by tiger presence and Sloth bears do not fear tigers. Both do not have predator-prey relations. and these bears roam without any tension
(Thapar, Garshiells, Yoganand). Tigers mostly avoid face-to-face confrontations with Sloth bears.
(Altre edizioni, Francis leukel) and tigers always kill by ambush and in face on fights, tigers normally flee rather than fighing the aggressive bears as bears can injury them seriously.
(Adele conover, Joshi, accounts); in fact, there are many cases of Sloth bears defeating tigers in face-to-face, head-on fight, including sometimes multiple tigers and adult males like Genghis, Khali and Matkasur
. (Accounts from experts and many videos from wildlife tourists). In fights, between sloth bears and tigers, the match is often draw.
(Yoganand). What basically overall is clear, or in short, that despite of being smaller to them, sloth bears almost always humiliate tigers, show no fear to them and tigers simply try not to encounter them frontally even though a tiger can kill them in a fight to death match. Remember it's a small bear; so if a small bear can humiliate a tiger why cannot a bear not only same-sized but larger than tiger i.e. the Ussuri brown bear dominate tigers? Wouldn't it be simply absurd to think that tigers have a tough time against the smaller sloth bears but not against larger Ussuri brown bears? A tiger who struggles to kill a smaller bear than itself can kill a larger bear itself in a fight? If size speaks for tiger against sloth bears, so do size speaks for Ussuri brown bears as well against tigers. If a small aggressive bear can be a tough opponent to a larger Bengal tiger, it becomes crystal clear the for the largest beast of Amur the small Siberian tiger is not a problem to dominate.
So given the reliable scientific data, interspecific examples and logical rational thinking for a sensible and true-oriented person its totally clear to see that in Amur region the Ussuri brown bears dominates Siberian tigers as American Grizzlies dominate large wolf packs, making the Brown bear as the solely true 'Boss of the Amur Taiga' fearing no one, claiming tiger's prey and making them to evade their aggression and strength. If a person still obstinately denies and cavils all this logic and data, he has simply distracted from the track of rational thinking and should forgo that any kind of true and unbiased knowledge his mind can sustain.
