Bear and grey wolf interractions in the wild

[Shadow]

If looking at that documentary in my posting #11 and if not interested to watch whole documentary, that part 46.04-48.50. It is interesting to see that behavior getting caught to film. Big male bear using wolf pack to hunt for him. Almost like they would be his employees :) That is fascinating to see and also, imo, can show us, what big males do with tigers in Russian far east. There it is just usually female tiger, who does that same "job" as here wolf pack. It has to be disturbing for animal(s) who get that bear walking behind, knowing that soon after kill, that "giant" arrives. That footage also can give a hint, why that isn´t too common thing though. It demands some size and good self confidence to act like that, not something to see too often. But big dominant male brown bears are quite opportunistic.

I mean you can see on some carcass many bears sometimes, if those are younger males and females/cubs. But forget that sight at the same second, when dominant male arrives. All other bears, wolves, wolverines, whatever there is, vanishes. If not voluntarily, it´s charged. One good example was in study from Yellowstone. Female bear with cubs approached a carcass and there was a wolf pack too. But not mother bear with cubs or wolf pack could do nothing, but to wait, because big male bear was lying on carcass and eating. And after eaten, male bear didn´t care at all about standoff between mother bear and wolf pack, it just went away minding his own business.

Usually when mentioning tiger and bear in same posting, it leads to nothing good. But hopefully this could be seen as it is, some thinking and trying to understand interactions between species. For instance it is known, that bears time to time follow tigers in Russian far east and then take over kill or share it with tiger. Same time it is known, that it doesn´t happen all the time. But seeing a bear there waiting for wolves to appear and then starting to follow is fascinating. Even though documentaries are often edited, that scene, where bear walked a moment with wolves, looked authentic. And when combined that to known facts, it just feels logical actually to see that. I don´t think though, that it is like that with tigers :) That would be a total mess if bear would appear there starting to walk side by side with tigress like "Hi chick, what´s up?" :)

I haven´t searched too much information about this behavior. Maybe time to look closer just for curiosity. Bear-wolf interactions are luckily quite often caught to film and also otherwise documented quite a lot. Reply