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Post by OldGreenGrolar on Sept 24, 2020 21:28:01 GMT -5
 This polar bear is probably a relatively large male but even he can kill a bull walrus but with difficulty. |
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Post by OldGreenGrolar on Sept 24, 2020 21:34:51 GMT -5
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Post by brobear on Dec 9, 2020 8:58:58 GMT -5
I have seen ( video ) only one incident of a polar bear fighting and killing a bull walrus. How many confirmed reports do we have of a walrus killing a polar bear?
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Post by King Kodiak on Dec 9, 2020 9:12:58 GMT -5
I have seen ( video ) only one incident of a polar bear fighting and killing a bull walrus. How many confirmed reports do we have of a walrus killing a polar bear?
domainofthebears.proboards.com/post/30190/thread |
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Post by OldGreenGrolar on Aug 3, 2021 19:35:03 GMT -5
Famous polar bear biologist Ian Stirling and colleagues did a study: Polar bears sometimes bludgeon walruses to death with stones or ice It’s long been said that a piece of ice is the perfect murder weapon  In this illustration, which appears in an 1865 book by adventurer Charles Francis Hall, a polar bear uses a rock as a tool to kill a walrus. Some have thought that Inuit reports of this behavior were just stories, but new research suggests not. Walruses, weighing as much as 1,300 kilograms with huge tusks and nearly impenetrable skulls, are almost impossible for a hungry polar bear to kill. But new research suggests that some polar bears have invented a work-around — bashing walruses on the head with a block of stone or ice. For more than 200 years, Inuit in Greenland and the eastern Canadian Arctic have told stories of polar bears (Ursus maritimus) using such tools to aid in killing walruses. Yet explorers, naturalists and writers often dismissed such accounts, relegating them to myth along with tales about shape-shifting bears. The persistence of these reports, including one report from an Inuk hunter in the late 1990s, coupled with photos of a male polar bear named GoGo at a Japanese zoo using tools to obtain suspended meat compelled Ian Stirling and colleagues to investigate further. “It’s been my general observation that if an experienced Inuit hunter tells you that he’s seen something, it’s worth listening to and very likely to be correct,” says Stirling, one of the world’s leading polar bear biologists. The researchers reviewed historical, secondhand observations of tool use in polar bears reported by Inuit hunters to explorers and naturalists as well as recent observations by Inuit hunters and non-Inuit researchers and documented observations of GoGo and brown bears — polar bears’ closest relatives — using tools in captivity to access food. This review suggests that tool use in wild polar bears, though infrequent, does occur in the case of hunting walruses because of their large size, the researchers report in the June Arctic. “Really, the only species you would want to bonk on the head with a piece of ice would be a walrus,” says Andrew Derocher, director of the Polar Bear Science Lab at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, who wasn’t involved with the new study. He suspects that it might just be a few polar bears that do this behavior. For example, if a mother bear figured out how to use ice or stone in this way, “it’s something her offspring would pick up on,” but not necessarily a skill polar bears across the Arctic would acquire, he says. Among animals, using tools to solve problems has long been regarded as a marker of a higher level of what humans consider intelligence. Notoriously smart chimpanzees, for example, craft spears to hunt smaller mammals (SN: 2/28/07). Dolphins carry marine sponges in their mouths to stir sand and uncover prey (SN: 6/8/05). And elephants have been known to drop logs or large rocks onto electric fences to cut off the power supply. Studies on the cognitive abilities of polar bears are lacking. “We don’t know anything experimental or objective at all,” Stirling says. “However, we have a great deal of observational information that tends to suggest polar bears are really smart.” Members of the bear family, Ursidae, are typically assumed to have strong cognitive skills as a result of their large brains and evidenced by their sophisticated hunting strategies. Studies on captive American black bears have even revealed some mental capabilities that appear to exceed those of primates.  This sculpture in the Itsanitaq Museum in Churchill, Canada shows a polar bear lifting a block of ice above the head of a sleeping walrus.GLORIA DICKIE CITATIONS I. Stirling, K. Laidre and E. Born. Do wild polar bears (Ursus maritimus) use tools when hunting walruses (Odobenus rosmarus)? Arctic. Vol. 74, June 2021, p. 175. doi: 10.14430/arctic72532. www.google.com/amp/s/www.sciencenews.org/article/polar-bears-bludgeon-walrus-stones-tools-ice-inuit/amp |
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Post by OldGreenGrolar on Aug 3, 2021 19:38:00 GMT -5
Do Wild Polar Bears (Ursus maritimus) Use Tools when Hunting Walruses (Odobenus rosmarus)? Abstract Since the late 1700s, reports of polar bears (Ursus maritimus) using tools (i.e., pieces of ice or stones) to kill walruses (Odobenus rosmarus) have been passed on verbally to explorers and naturalists by their Inuit guides, based on local traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) as well as accounts of direct observations or interpretations of tracks in the snow made by the Inuit hunters who reported them. To assess the possibility that polar bears may occasionally use tools to hunt walruses in the wild, we summarize 1) observations described to early explorers and naturalists by Inuit hunters about polar bears using tools, 2) more recent documentation in the literature from Inuit hunters and scientists, and 3) recent observations of a polar bear in a zoo spontaneously using tools to access a novel food source. These observations and previously published experiments on brown bears (Ursus arctos) confirm that, in captivity, polar and brown bears are both capable of conceptualizing the use of a tool to obtain a food source that would otherwise not be accessible. Based on the information from all our sources, this may occasionally also have been the case in the wild. We suggest that possible tool use by polar bears in the wild is infrequent and mainly limited to hunting walruses because of their large size, difficulty to kill, and their possession of potentially lethal weapons for both their own defense and the direct attack of a predator.  FIG. 2. Five-year-old GoGo, a male polar bear in Tennoji Zoological Gardens, Osaka, Japan, using tools to access a food source suspended above his reach. Panels show GoGo (a) throwing a piece of plastic pipe, (b) holding a 2 m piece of tree branch, (c) using a small log and, (d) throwing a small dense buoy-shaped tool using both forepaws at the same time (Photos © Tennoji Zoological Gardens, Osaka, Japan).  journalhosting.ucalgary.ca/index.php/arctic/article/view/72532/54935 |
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Post by OldGreenGrolar on Sept 4, 2021 11:24:40 GMT -5
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Post by OldGreenGrolar on Sept 11, 2021 9:09:51 GMT -5
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Post by brobear on Jul 4, 2022 2:49:32 GMT -5
POLAR BEAR PREDATION OF WALRUSES ON WRANGELL ISLAND www.arlis.org/docs/vol1/E/Walrus/Russian/Ovsyanikov.1995.PolarBearPredationWalrusWrangellIsland.BullM.pdf Polar bears’ main prey species throughout their range are the ringed seal (Phoca hispida) and the bearded seal (Erignathus barbatus) (Stirling, 1974; Archibald, 1977; Striling, Latour, 1978; DeMaster, Stirling, 1981; Belikov, 1982). The significance of polar bear predation of walruses has never been adequately assessed due to the lack of factual data. During nine years (1981 – 1989) of winter and early spring observations of wildlife in a large lead off Dundas Island in the Canadian high Arctic, scientists recorded only ten cases of polar bears hunting walruses that were wintering in the lead (Calvert, Stirling, 1990). Moreover, only once did they actually observe a bear kill and drag the dead walrus out of the water onto the ice (D. Grant, quote from Calvert, Stirling, 1990 – personal comment); the other nine cases of predation were identified by the tracks, which precluded the scientists from determining how the bears had killed their prey. Observations of the actual moment of capture and kill were likewise missing in two more reported cases (Alaska, oral reports from observers) (Calvert, Stirling, 1990). In 1983, I. Stirling (1984) watched a female polar bear attempting to attack walruses hauled out on ice off Cape Collins, Dundas Island, but giving up after a threatening display from the walrus group. Cases of bears feeding on walrus carcasses near leads have been reported from Franz Joseph Land (Parovshchikov, 1967), but conclusions of frequent predation were made solely on the evidence of tracks and leftovers. P.G. Nikulin observed and provided a detailed description of an unsuccessful hunting attempt by a bear on an ice haulout in the Chukchi Sea in 1940. Finally, L.A. Popov (1958, 1960) described a failed bear attempt to approach walruses hauled out on Peschany Island, as well as walruses’ reaction to bears on the shore of Peter Island in the Laptev Sea. That concludes the list of eyewitness accounts of interactions between polar bears and walruses in the Russian sector of the Arctic. S. E. Belikov (1982) described two cases of bear predation of adult walruses on the icepack as reported to him by alleged eyewitnesses (an ice reconnaissance plane navigator and a captain of a nuclear icebreaker), but we have doubts as to the credibility of those reports. Therefore, understanding of polar bear – walrus interactions has been based on very sparse factual information. All the facts documented to date (Nikulin, 1940; Popov, 1958, 1960; Parovshchikoa, 1967; Kiliaan, Stirling, 1978; De Master, Stirling, 1981; Fay,1982; Belikov, 1982; Stirling, 1984; Calvert, Stirling, 1990) suggest that polar bears not only feed on walrus carcasses, but try to hunt both juvenile and adult animals when encountering them on shore or on the ice. The lack of information has prevented us from answering questions about polar bear hunting strategies or vulnerability of walruses of different sex and age groups to bear predation, as well as the role of walrus in polar bear diet. This reports contains information collected during observations of polar bear and walrus interactions on Wrangell Island and in the near-shore waters around it in the fall of 1990-1992. |
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Post by yz on Jul 4, 2022 10:15:10 GMT -5
It'd be interesting to know how big cats would handle a walrus. My take is that they'd get oneshot the moment they get stabbed. 😂
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Post by OldGreenGrolar on Jul 6, 2022 3:16:57 GMT -5
It'd be interesting to know how big cats would handle a walrus. My take is that they'd get oneshot the moment they get stabbed. 😂 Tigers have taken down gaurs and water buffalos and lions have taken down Cape buffalos and even girrafes. However, walruses, belugas, and narwhales have thicker skin and a thick layer of blubber are much harder to kill than the bovines at least. In addition, walruses have thick necks (much thicker than gaurs and Cape buffalos). That is why male polar bears which are much larger and stronger than tigers,lions, and smilodon populators are unable to stop even a sick walrus from escaping into water. I doubt tigers and lions and even smilodons can kill walruses either but the agility of cats will enable them to avoid these tusks. |
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Post by brobear on Jul 6, 2022 3:34:42 GMT -5
The walrus in that vid is far from 4000 pounds if you look closely. Probably a sub adult. Still plenty big though and a challenge to pull onto the ice. Polar bears have been known to kill bull walrus, but such an event is far from being common. |
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Post by brobear on Dec 6, 2022 3:46:59 GMT -5
Not so long ago, my thoughts were, "why should a big male polar bear have a difficult time killing a walrus? Sure, the tusked-pinniped is big, but all he can do is flop around like an over-sized caterpillar. But, there is more to the walrus than meets the eye.  |
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Post by OldGreenGrolar on Dec 8, 2022 15:27:07 GMT -5
/\ The polar bear in the picture above is female.
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bolushi
Parictis
Outstanding Bear
Posts: 14
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Post by bolushi on Dec 10, 2022 1:01:11 GMT -5
Not so long ago, my thoughts were, "why should a big male polar bear have a difficult time killing a walrus? Sure, the tusked-pinniped is big, but all he can do is flop around like an over-sized caterpillar. But, there is more to the walrus than meets the eye. Even if the walrus was just a giant caterpillar it'd still be usually beyond a polar bear's scope. So far bull walruses have a 100% success rate against polar bears. Too big, their tusks are only insult to injury. Females or compromised males are another story, but every account of a bear killing a walrus should be given a lot of scrutiny. If polar bears could kill walruses much at all, even females, they would've massacred them 1000s of years ago and they would've never coexisted. |
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Post by OldGreenGrolar on Dec 10, 2022 6:40:28 GMT -5
/\ Walruses are tough prey because of their thick necks with fat, muscle, and hide. That is why they are rarely killed even by adult male polar bears. Still killing an adult walrus is an impressive performance even if it is sick.
Graaah posted a video of a polar bear which killed a sick walrus. Sick walruses usually isolate themselves from the herd becoming a vulnerable target. That video no longer exist and Graaah has be inactive for a long time.
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Post by brobear on Dec 10, 2022 6:53:52 GMT -5
/\ Walruses are tough prey because of their thick necks with fat, muscle, and hide. That is why they are rarely killed even by adult male polar bears. Still killing an adult walrus is an impressive performance even if it is sick. Graaah posted a video of a polar bear which killed a sick walrus. Sick walruses usually isolate themselves from the herd becoming a vulnerable target. That video no longer exist and Graaah has be inactive for a long time. I remember from the old 'AVA' forum, at that time there was only one video known of a big male polar bear attacking and killing a healthy full-grown bull walrus. The video was taken by a Russian biologist. I'm not sure if we have that video here or not. If not, it might now be hard to locate. |
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Post by brobear on Dec 10, 2022 7:51:09 GMT -5
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Post by brobear on Dec 10, 2022 7:52:17 GMT -5
POLAR BEAR KILLING A BULL WALRUS:
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Post by yz on Dec 10, 2022 10:28:13 GMT -5
I'd like to see how a lion/tiger would handle a walrus bull. |
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