Amur Tigers

[LandSeaLion]

(03-24-2022, 07:15 PM)Apex Titan Wrote: I'm talking about this account, mentioned by biologist Kucherenko, of a tigress that stalked and killed a big male brown bear much larger than herself. This incident was eye-witnessed by his colleague:

"Of course, all my attention was riveted by the tiger. It was a female. Small, with salted nipples. I was surprised at her courage, and even self-confidence - the bear was much larger in size and had remarkable strength. It was later that I learned the reason for her courage and decisiveness: they were built on a strict calculation of their actions, surprise attack, agility and swiftness."

"The tigress, of course, took care of her life for the children more than for herself, and if she decided to attack the bear, to know, there were good reasons for this and confidence in victory."

"She sneaked up exactly like a domestic cat: slowly, with fading, silently moving her paws. The tigress did not take her yellow burning eyes off the victim and definitely calculated her every step towards the approach to the distance of the decisive jump." ...

"There were only two tiger leaps left for the unsuspecting bear, but the striped one for some reason hesitated. And I realized that she built her calculations on a single jump. She either waited for the prey to inadvertently approach her, or was looking for a convenient moment in order to approach herself. A minute passed, another stretched. I forgot about the retreat because of the stress, although I kept my gun in constant readiness. And here it is, the right moment!  When the bear buried its head in the dug hole, the tigress jumped onto another boulder some five meters away from the "beetle" who had lost all caution."

"She jumped on him from that boulder. It jumped with such a deafening roar that I completely died out. However, I clearly saw her in a jump - with her mouth wide open, her front paws spread with her claws extended In that tiny fraction of a second, the bear could only turn around and rise, but he did not have time to scatter his paws in order to embrace the enemy, as it is customary in such circumstances in a bear race. I think that it was on all this that the tiger jump was built. The predator with a strong swing of its clawed paws slashed the victim from top to bottom along its open belly, immediately dived with its head between the enemy's hind legs to its very shoulders and with a sharp jerk threw the brown hulk through itself, by its tail ... that this beast is capable of throwing so much weight twice its own." ...

*This image is copyright of its original author

"The bear roared and rolled, more and more entangling itself with blue guts. From horror and pain, at first he did not even think to find his enemy and take revenge, which is also inherent in the bear's nature from birth. But in his last breath, he found the tigress with his eyes and crawled towards her, but crawled already with dying fading. She was lying on a boulder, whipping herself with her tail, in full readiness for another jump, the final one. However, he was not needed."

"The tigress approached her prey already at dusk. There was such silence that I could hardly breathe, heard the beat of my heart and caught every step of the amba on a dry leaf. And I couldn't decide what to do. I knew that she would spot me at the first movement, and that it would have to go around that place in a considerable circle. Moreover, the tigress was agitated and very dangerous."

https://www.litmir.me/br/?b=170047&p=33


About this book:

The author of the book is a well-known Far Eastern writer, scientist, hunting biologist, candidate of biological sciences. For many years he studied the ecology of the tiger. The stories about meetings with the lord of the Ussuri taiga, written on the basis of factual material, allow us to learn a lot about the habits and lifestyle of a rare Red Book predator. In short stories - and pride for the magnificent beast, and compassion for his misfortunes. The author urges readers, all residents of the Amur and Primorye Territories, to respect the rights of the animal to its tiger house, to be responsible for the survival of the Amur tiger on our planet.

https://www.labirint.ru/books/475154/

https://www.ozon.ru/product/vstrechi-s-a...j7-xVb8LeQ

I don’t know if that’s just a dodgy translation but…slashing a big male brown bear from head to toe with a paw stroke to make its guts spill out, then rolling between the bear’s legs, grabbing it by the tail and hurling it through the air? I’ve got to admit, that description sounds…very fantastical. Like something out of a movie. I couldn’t help but be reminded of this!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=TV1bjOKyTnA&t=2m46s

My curiosity was piqued, so I read a bit more of the book…thank you for posting the link (I can’t read Russian, but I am semi-fluent in Google Translate)! To add some much-needed context, it appears this particular tale was not a description from a colleague/fellow scientist. It was part of a retelling of a story by a man called Andrei Efremovich, a commercial hunter at whose lodge the author spent some time.

Quote:“It is rare for anyone to see the Amur tiger. And not only because his dwellings are dense to impenetrability. Possessing a sensitive ear and sharp eyesight, he detects a person much earlier and acts according to his own understanding. Turns aside or freezes, watching his eternal enemy ... No, he is not afraid of him, but is more curious or plotting something. The painfully bitter experience of communicating with people is now in the tiger's subconscious.

Now! In the old years, the amba behaved in the Ussuri taiga much more imposingly and did not feel respect for the person. That is why I always listened with interest to the stories of old experienced taiga dwellers about past meetings with a tiger, finding out their attitude towards this predator.

Once I inadvertently got stuck in the hut of a fisherman with a long experience in the Ussuri wilderness itself, and after that, for ten years now, I thank fate for that taiga meeting.

Andrei Efremovich is a hereditary hunter. His grandfather came here, to the end of the world, passing half of Europe and all of Siberia. Then he rafted along the Amur, went up in boats along the Ussuri and Bikin, to do, in the end, free arable farming. But the peasantry did not succeed in prosperity: the lands turned out to be the wrong ones, the plantings got wet or burned out, crops were destroyed by every animal - from a chipmunk to a wild boar and a bear. Willy-nilly, he had to turn to the taiga crafts.

Andrey Efremovich told me a lot, but most of all I was interested in his stories about encounters with a tiger. If only because he had a hundred times fewer of them than face-to-face skirmishes with bears. Me too. Exactly like the others who had a chance to walk around the local taiga to their heart's content.

Imagine: a winter night, a blackened hunting lodge, lonely from time, sun and rain, lost in the mountains of the little-traveled Sikhote-Alin. It is cramped, but warm and cozy, the tin stove in the corner creaks peacefully from the heat. It smells of porridge, borscht, drying cloth and something else ... And on the plank beds are two people tired during the day, but not yet asleep. One of them quietly and thoughtfully pulls the thread of memories, while the other listens attentively, without interrupting, without even asking again. And such were floating on the hut top of the head ...”

After witnessing the tiger and bear altercation, he apparently shot the tigress as a trophy, then found her cubs and sold them for profit to a zoo:

Quote:“How many hunters during the years of that merciless war of tigers and people this fierce beast robbed, ruined and even crushed! How many dogs did he gobble up at a time when, for a hunter, she meant the same as a horse for a peasant in suffering ... Just ask a commercial hunter, whom he will shoot first, if, suppose, he sees a tiger, a deer and a wild boar on his site at once? Even if it's a bear. And everyone will answer: if in truth - striped, of course!

And that's why I took that tigress at gunpoint that late evening. And then I had two good trophies for one shot, and even a kilometer from housing. Our brother rarely succeeds in such a luck, and only a person who does not know the essence of our life can envy me or the same poor fellow ... Everything went into business, nothing was lost, because the nights came already cold, with frost ... I corrected my household, my wife and the elderly I put on a new one, bought a bicycle for my son, and an excellent tee for myself.

So you try to understand me and do not judge strictly. And then I was not a poacher, and now I don’t consider myself one ... Yes, I almost forgot. Tiger cubs, three months old, my neighbor and I found and caught in five days, retreated and profitably sold to the zoo. And when there were no tigers at all in my lands, it was much calmer to trade and more prey ...”

The same hunter relayed another story about how he was once, as a young man, caught in the middle of a fight with two male tigers while an amorous female in heat flirted with him. When his father arrived and shot the female, he apparently grabbed the gun from him and bum-rushed the two male tigers at close range to kill them both:

Quote:“Passions and fears ran high. One animal calmly, as if not a man in front of him, walked along the spit in my direction about ten meters, while glancing at me indifferently, and the other two began to fight. The closest to me turned to the fighters and lay down, watching with interest their occupation. And then I guessed that I was at a tiger's wedding, and two grooms were competing for one bride at once.

It was only later that I began to recall wedding pictures and ceremonies, then I was all in the grip of fear. At some moment, both "gentleman" and "lady", busy with their problems, found themselves at the base of the upper edge of the spit, where the forest began, and I saw an opportunity to slip away along the lower. But as soon as I walked there, trying not to make noise with pebbles, the tigress blocked my way with several jumps, and, moreover, the bitch fell on her front paws and wagged her tail, seemingly inviting me to joke. Of course, I had no time for jokes, and I retreated to my starting position.

And the rivals clashed more and more angrily. "Yes, even if only lifted one another to death!" - I prayed to God. But the Lord, apparently, thought with irony: "All of you remember me only when he is firmly pressed, otherwise everything is like a mother of God ..." And he did not answer my prayer ... The roar stood throughout the taiga and up to the sky. The thugs opened their mouths at full width, waving their paws with their claws out. But there was no blood, because they did not fight seriously, with ordinary cuffs and slaps in the face. There were such moments that it was easy to crush an opponent - close your jaws on the enemy's neck, which appeared in front of the muzzle - and it would not last long. But no ...

They fought, scattered once, and twice, and again. And it happened that this huge, terrible ball of fighters would roll up to me for several meters, scattering pebbles, and the only thing left for me was to wander into the water. And I, completely lost my head from fear, earnestly pray to God to save me. He swore to thank him with all his life with faith and prayers, promised to study and read the Bible all the time, to acquire icons ... And at the same time he was baptized, looking to heaven.

And God rescued me from that trouble ... Although, maybe my father turned out to be my God, I don't know ... This is a special topic of conversation - about God. Difficult ... Let me tell you about your unexpected salvation.

The night fell quiet and dewy. A worried dad with a lantern went to look for me, then he heard a distant tiger roar and, guessing everything at once, bravely moved THERE. And amid the thunder of battles, he went out to the very edge of the forest at the base of that almost fatal spit. He saw the tigress a dozen meters away from him, she was sitting with her back to him, he put her first and put it down. And the inflamed suitors were so carried away by their problems that they either did not hear the shot, or did not pay attention to it. I was next to my father in some thirty seconds after the shot ... I was all thrashing, I was shedding tears and could not utter a word. He said: "Let's get out of here, out of harm's way ..." At this I shook my head negatively, took the rifle from my father and, maddened, pounced on the adversaries ... I shot at them point-blank and regretted that they had run out of cartridges. And after this retaliation he collapsed on the cobblestone."

A completely reliable narration? Well…I’ll leave that up to you. Personally I suspect that these particular accounts are rather more colourful than reality, and should probably be read in the same way that they were framed in the book itself - as stories told by an acquaintance on a cold winter’s night by the fireside.

(I’m not actually denying that a tiger could ambush and kill a bear, incidentally. I also think these stories are fascinating in the sense that they give an insight into how strongly the hunter/trapper living in the area feels about tigers (though also unpleasant to read, given that he describes hating and killing them mercilessly), which is why they’re included in the book. I just wouldn’t place as much credibility in them as I would a scientific report or paper!) Reply