ON THE EDGE OF EXTINCTION - A - THE TIGER (Panthera tigris)

[Apex Titan]

@Matias 

Based on everything I've read over the years, about a century's worth of reliable information, indicates that most Amur tigers kill and eat bears. While some tigers hunt bears occasionally, other tigers hunt bears very frequently, and some tigers habitually hunt bears and prefer killing and eating bears over ungulate prey. Large bears are also taken by tigers. This info will be posted in my next post on tiger predation on bears in the Russian far east.

Although Indo-chinese tigers regularly (in some areas) hunt both sun bears and Asiatic black bears & Bengal tigers hunt and kill sloth bears, especially in reserves like Panna, Amur tigers, for some reason, are by far the most active bear hunters. This is interesting because the Amur tiger co-exists with the larger species of bears - Brown bears and Ussuri/Himalayan black bears. Based on several reliable sources I've read, Himalayan black bears from the Russian Far East seem to be the largest of the Asiatic black bear subspecies in the world. Although there are reliable reports of very large Himalayan black bears from southern Asia too. Adult males of Himalayan black bears are frequently killed by tigers. In the Khekhtsir reserve, especially in summer, male tigers, when hunting brown bears, more often hunted large adult brown bears. (Based on observations of Tkachenko)

Why tigers choose to regularly prey on another large carnivore is any ones guess. Why some tigers prefer hunting and eating bears over ungulate prey (wild boars, red deer etc) is again any ones guess. I can only assume that bear meat is probably very tasty, juicy and rich to tigers. Tigers are also known to attack and kill bears solely on principle, which is also the tigers way of establishing its dominance over other carnivores in its habitat. - Apex predator role.

Recent reports from Russian specialists has confirmed that even tigresses are far more active at bear-hunting than some people assume. The young tigress 'Elena' recently (2020) killed and ate a bear, the juvenile tigress named 'Phillipa' regularly hunted and killed Himalayan black bears in the six months she was being monitored by biologists and researchers. There's also the account of a tigress hunting and killing an adult female brown bear with cubs. (Kaplanov) And the tigress who killed and ate a heavier 170 kg adult brown bear. (Bromlei) Biologists and researchers like Linda Kerley and Sergey Alekseevich have both reported accounts of tigresses killing adult male black bears too.

Now just very recently in September, 2021 in the Durmin river basin, a tigress killed and ate a Himalayan black bear. Judging by the size and robustness of the claw, it looks like she killed an adult bear. Sergey Kolchin stated that with the African swine fever having severely reduced the wild boar herds in that area to practically zero, tigers are hunting and eating bears much more often.

This adult male Himalayan black bear instantly fled up a tree from a tiger:

"The crunch of a dry branch under my foot, and an adult male Himalayan bear, just calmly feeding on fallen acorns, instantly flew up the oak - the tigers are not asleep."

"Another confirmation of this is the excrement with the fur and claws of a medium-sized bear, recently left by a tigress in a forest clearing. A tigress is feeding two four-month-old tiger cubs. With the wild boar - the main food of the predator - nowadays the trouble: the African swine fever has mowed down its livestock practically to zero. This means that bears began to get "on the table" of tigers much more often."

*This image is copyright of its original author

Bear claw & remains in the tigress's scat:

*This image is copyright of its original author

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