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

[Apex Titan]

A brand new article on Amur tigers and bears by Dr John Goodrich (Chief scientist, world authority on Siberian tigers and field biologist). In this article, Goodrich talks about his first-hand experience in the field on this topic.

Goodrich, who found some of the bears killed by the tiger 'Dima', confirms that the tiger hunted and killed huge female brown bears nearly his own size. Dima was a very large male tiger and what shocked Goodrich is that, with only 3 canines, he was able to swiftly kill a very large female brown bear of similar-size with a single bite to the nape of the neck.

Whats amazing is that Dima killed two big female brown bears around his own size, with only 3 canines! Adult brown bears have massive, heavily muscled necks with thick layers of fat, despite this, the tiger was able to instantly annihilate such a large bear with ease. Incredible.

On record, Dima killed 4 adult female brown bears, one young brown bear and an adult male black bear (Chapter 19 study). All bears were killed by Dima when he had only 3 canines. The rest of the bears he killed throughout his lifetime, their remains were found in his excrements. Bears made up 80% of Dima's diet.

A Dance of Death: Tigers and Bears Battle in Northeast Asia

MAY 24, 2022

In this blog, Panthera Tiger Program Director Dr. John Goodrich transports us to the snowy regions of northeast Asia — the home of wolves, bears, leopards and Siberian tigers. After stumbling upon a shocking tiger kill, he recounts how he began to understand the complex relationship between tigers and bears in this challenging environment. Navigate the snowy oak forests with Dr. Goodrich as he brings to light the important conservation implications of these interactions. 

A few decades ago, when I lived and worked in northeast Asia, I was tracking a male tiger named Dima that we had captured and fitted with a radio collar a few months before. He was the biggest tiger we would catch in 20 years of research in the area, and at 455 lbs, the circumference of his head was bigger than my waist and the base of his tail was as thick as my thigh. He had been moving through an area where people had summer gardens and grazed cattle, so I was having a look around to make sure he wasn't getting himself into trouble. But what I found that day blew my mind.

I followed his tracks in light patches of early spring snow. Here - we saw he meandered through a park-like oak forest. And there - suddenly, as he approached the edge of a steep embankment, his tracks became spaced very close together. He crouched into a stalk. And when I looked over the embankment, I was shocked. Before me was a large, partially-eaten brown bear sow.

*This image is copyright of its original author

I jumped down to examine the carcass and immediately noted a single, bloody hole in her neck that was clearly an entry wound. Her tracks showed that she had ambled along the base of the embankment and seemed to suddenly fall down dead, with no sign of the struggle one would expect from a huge tiger killing a bear nearly his own size. 

*This image is copyright of its original author

I concluded the bear had been shot and Dima just took advantage of a free meal, but why hadn’t the hunter claimed such a valuable prize? Then I turned the bear over to inspect the exit wound. To my surprise, I found two more entry wounds! I revised my conclusion - Dima had leapt from the bank onto the bear, dispatching her with a single bite to the nape of her neck, almost before she was even aware of his presence (one of his canine teeth had broken prior to our capturing him, hence only three bite wounds).

The power and skill required to do that was unimaginable. I collected some samples and vacated the area, hoping Dima would return to finish his meal, which he did, though it took him several days to devour such a large animal. 

Fascinated, I went home and began combing through local literature and speaking with my colleagues on the subject. There were numerous reports of tigers preying on both brown bears and Asiatic black bears, but the relationship, it seems, was not that simple; there were also reports of bears killing tigers. As the years progressed and we tracked both bears and tigers, the picture of a complex relationship emerged.

The largest brown bears - and we recorded bears with weights up to 800 lbs in the area - would usurp kills from tigers (females only) and even track them from kill to kill (meeting those bears when searching for tiger kills is another story for another day!). In one case, tracks in the snow told the story of a tigress and bear reluctantly sharing a red deer the tigress had killed. The tracks suggested some bluffing and blustering on the part of both species, but no actual fighting. Rather, it seemed when the tiger had eaten its fill for the day, the bear was able to scare it off, but when the tigress returned hungry and the bears stomach was full, the bear would yield to the cat.

Once, my colleague Ivan came home from tracking a tigress and told the story of how it spent the better part of a day trying unsuccessfully to pull a black bear with cubs from her winter den.  

*This image is copyright of its original author

Dima killed several more bears in the following years that we tracked him, and not all kills were so clean and efficient as my first discovery. At the site of his next kill, another female brown bear, I found a gruesome scene with a huge swath of flattened vegetation where the bear fought for its life. Small trees had been bitten in half, and those that remained standing were splattered with blood. After the fight, Dima spent four days in the area and completely consumed the bear.

Why did Dima take such risks? Bears are among the most powerful animals I know, with formidable teeth and claws. Wouldn’t sticking to red deer and sika deer make more sense? While we will never know for sure, I suspect his predation on bears served another purpose than just filling his belly.

Likely, he was taking out the competition - the same animals that might kill his cubs or steal the kills of one of the three tigresses with which he shared his territory. 

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

Understanding these types of relationships is important to conservation. For example, if we are working to recover tigers, what are the implications of bears taking their kills (reduced energy intake might mean lower survival of tigers and their cubs)? What impacts will tigers have on bear (and wolf) populations? Amur tigers have recovered from an estimated 40 individuals in the wild about 75 years ago to an estimated 400 today.

But during that time, for instance, the local wolf population has plummeted, likely due to displacement and predation by tigers. We don't want another species to go extinct due to our recovering tigers. While this has not been a concern because both wolves and bears are widely distributed across Eurasia, it is a concern in the southern region where the world’s remaining 40 or so Amur leopards overlap with tigers.

Indeed, during our work there, a tiger did kill a leopard. Research in India has shown potentially significant impacts of tigers on leopard abundance and behavior, and that will be the subject of a future blog post. But in the snowy forests of Asia, far at the northern edge of the tiger's range, I saw firsthand the dance between two massive predators — bears and tigers. It was a dance that resulted in death, food, struggle — and for me, insight. Now, I could better understand what it means to protect not only tigers, but all animals. 

https://panthera.org/blog-post/dance-dea...heast-asia


A somewhat accurate depiction of how the tiger 'Dima' killed the large, similar-sized brown bear sow with a single bite to the nape of the neck:

*This image is copyright of its original author

Conclusions:

This article (first-hand info) from Goodrich confirms that the tiger 'Dale' (Dima) hunted and killed huge female brown bears up to his own size (455lbs). What makes this predation feat even more impressive is that the tiger 'Dima' instantly killed such a large brown bear with only 3 canines, with a single bite to the nape of the neck.

It confirms that a tiger with just 3 canines can instantly dispatch a large adult brown bear around its own size and weight!

This also confirms that male tigers prey on large adult brown bears up to their own size and weight. Note, one year after Dima's death in the summer of August, 2001, another different male tiger (unknown male) also attacked and killed a very large, full-grown prime female brown bear aged 8-10 years old, and killed the big bear after a fierce battle. Neither of these male tigers, as first-hand reports confirm, were ever "seriously injured" by these big female brown bears they killed. This of course, was a fabricated lie initially made-up by some bear fanboyz in the old AVA forums.

Goodrich confirms Dunishenko's recent statement (2021) that tigers kill even large bears with a single bite to the nape of the neck. Which shows the immense jaw power of the tiger. Goodrich also confirms biologist Linda Kerley's email & observations, in which she stated that she's seen tigers prey on the largest and healthiest female brown bears, and also confirms Baikov's statement (1925) that large tigers hunt and kill (large) bears of the same weight.

Bear specialists hunt large bears up to their own size and even heavier. A tigress (120-150 kg) killed a larger 170 kg adult brown bear (Bromley 1965).

Only the largest brown bears (800+lbs) will usurp kills from tigresses. Note, when Goodrich mentions an incident (gives context) again, like always, it involved a tigress. Interestingly, both the big male brown bear and tigress will try bluff each other, if the tigress's belly is already full, the bear can scare away the tigress, but when the tigress returns to her kill hungry, and the bears belly is full, the large male brown bear will yield even to the much smaller female tiger. 

The largest male brown bears, as field research consistently shows over and over again, despite their massive weight advantage, do not attempt to displace male tigers from their kill. They strictly avoid them, its too risky and dangerous for the bear.

Goodrich also suggests that tiger predation on bears could be more than just tigers filling their bellies. By hunting and killing bears, this way, tigers also remove competition and potential threat to their cubs, as its well known that tigers ruthlessly pursue, hunt and destroy their competition. Goodrich's article also confirms what John Vaillant stated in his book about tigers regularly hunting, eating and picking fights with brown bears (dangerous opponents) and brutally dismembering the bears, and killing bears solely on principle (Based on the observations of biologists & hunters).

This article also suggests why brown bears usually vacate areas that are densely populated by tigers. Brown bears want to escape decimation by tigers, (as do wolves) as recent research and information (2018-2022) from Russia and Northeast China shows, tigers reduce the populations of brown bears. The fact that even the largest and healthiest adult female brown bears are hunted by tigers, it would make sense for brown bears to generally avoid areas and regions with a high tiger density. Reply