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Big cat and Bear tale
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http://shaggygod.proboards.com/board/38/felidae
gorbatov.ru/?page_id=634 "...Unfortunately, Ivan Seryodkin and his 4 co-authors were unable to attend the conference, so his presentation on the Intraspecific relationships between brown bears, Asiatic black bears and the Amur tiger was graciously read by his colleague Tsutomu Mano. The Sikhote-Alin Zapovednik in the Primorsky region of the Russian Far East is a unique habitat in which brown bears, Asiatic black bears and Amur tigers co-exist. During this investigation, Ivan and his co-authors visited 427 tiger kills. Of these, 16.7% had been scavenged by brown bears, most of which were red deer. They documented 22 cases in which tigers killed brown bears, 12 cases in which brown bears killed tigers, and 10 cases where the species fought but there were no immediate fatalities. Encounters with black bears were unclear, but it was evident that all 3 species used the same mark and rub trees..." www.bearbiology.com/fileadmin/tpl/Downloads/IBN_Newsletters/IBN_Low_February_2011.pdf
Intraspecific relationships between brown bears, Asiatic black bears and the
Amur tiger Seryodkin, I.V.1, J.M. Goodrich2, A.V. Kostyria3, E.N. Smirnov4, D.G. Miquelle2 1 Pacific Geographical Institute, FEB RAS, Vladivostok, Russia, 690041 2 Wildlife Conservation Society, Bronx, NY, 10460, USA 3 Institute of Biology and Soil Science, FEB RAS, Vladivostok, Russia, 690022 4 Sikhote-AlinState Biosphere Zapovednik, Terney, Russia, 692150 In the Russian Far East, the Amur tiger (Panthera tigris altaica), brown bear (Ursus arctos) and Asiatic black bear (U. thibetanus) all share the same habitat. These three species all prefer deciduous and mixed wood forests. In the Sikhote-Alin protected area, the relationship between bears and a tiger were studied during extensive telemetry research in the region. During the non-denning period bears scavenged 16.7% of surveyed tiger kills (n=427). Brown bears scavenged tiger kills 6.7 times more often, than Asiatic black bears. The frequency of autumn scavenging by bears was less than spring (X2 = 8.7, df= 1, p= 0.003) andsummer (X2 = 10.5, df= 1, p= 0.012). In 44.4% of cases the bears scavenged tiger kills only after the tiger had abandoned the kill site. In at least 4 cases (11.1 %) bears displaced tigers from a kill, while in 4 cases both tigers and bears utilized the kill during the same period. Analysis has shown that 2.1% of bears diet is obtained from tiger kills, 1.4% for brown bears and 0.7% from Asiatic black bears. In 44 recorded encounters between tigers and bears, the tiger initiated contact in 12 cases while the bear initiated contact in 8 cases. Of these encounters, 50% resulted in the death of the bear, 27.3% resulted in the death of the tiger and in 22.7% of encounters both animals survived and parted ways. Records of tigers killing Asiatic black bears are unclear. Tigers can prey on denning bears, and the Asiatic black bear have better protected dens then brown bears. Bears often follow tiger tracks through deep snow for ease of movement, to scavenge tiger kills and to potentially prey on tigers. Tigers, brown bears and Asiatic black bears all use the same mark and rub trees. http://shaggygod.proboards.com/board/38/felidae
I believe that there is more information on the relationship between tiger and grizzly ( Amur brown bear ) to be found in Russia. There must be! Their interactions are probably rather complex and very much based on individual animals, the habits acquired by each one, and of course the mood of the individual on any given day. In my personal opinion, since we have little else to go on, a mature male of each, tiger and grizzly, at roughly size parity, let's say within 50 pounds the same weight, could easily go either way. Size makes a difference. Fights taking place in captivity, we all seem to agree are meaningless.
I'm sure that not all would agree with my assessment; that's alright. To each his own opinion; I refuse to argue. I asked this of Peter once, but the information has long since been lost... anyone, please list any books containing information on the topic of tigers and bears in the wild.
I will add to post #88 that not only are the tiger and the grizzly likely equals in a confrontation at roughly size parity on dry land but they are probably equals in water as well.
Information can be found at: ON THE EDGE OF EXTINCTION - A - TIGERS posts #94 thru #97 and posts #114, 115, 122, 125, 129, and 160.
I've been considering the interactions most likely to take place between tiger and grizzly ( Russian brown bear ). First of all, we must understand that the tiger, and not the grizzly, is a full-time predator. Therefore, the tiger will stalk the grizzly far more than the other way around. Generally, the tiger will choose bears much smaller than himself. More bears are killed by tigers than tigers by bears. A shatun bear is one who was not successful in gaining the much-needed fat reserve for his long winter's sleep. This grizzly will be desperate for nourishment and might challenge a tiger over a fresh carcass. In the bear's weakened condition, a tiger might consider this starving grizzly as potential prey. A sub-adult tiger ( a young teenager in human terms ) might have more enthusiasm than good sense and stalk a fully-mature boar grizzly. A sub-adult grizzly might foolishly challenge a mature tiger over a fresh kill. Also, a grizzly fresh from his winter sleep is hungry, in a foul mood, and ready for a fight. However, he is carrying less weight than at any other time of the year. Given the opportunity, he just might follow his hyper-sensitive nose to a tiger kill.
The big cats sometimes would fall as the victims to the bears, including the experienced males, nothing out of the norm.
This is the nature, and the bears are no doubt some extremely strong competitors, no pushover, even they currently don't completely overlap with the big cats in the ecosystems. 
Amur tiger checking for Himalayan black bear
https://www.facebook.com/AmursFarEastRus...281426984/ Pretty impressive climb for such a large animal, I think its a tigress as well.
A small hole for a bear. Such hollowed-out trees are not likely common. Any information on this story?
Just the link, here is the FB page.
https://www.facebook.com/AmursFarEastRussia/?fref=photo Looks as though its a Amur sanctuary page, I don't speak russian so I can't give more info, sorry. The hole definitely looks to small for a large male bear but a female bear or youngster could probably fit in there and the tree itself is quite robust so it could fit a good sized bear as long as they could squeeze into the hollow first. Its also hard to tell exactly how large the hole is as the tiger is closer to the camera than the hole and the camera is facing upwards towards the hole. But here is some info on Tree Hollows "Russia, China, Korea Asian black bears, also known as Himalayan bears (Lat.: Ursus thibetanus), in northern parts of their range, such as Russian province Primorye, China, and both Koreas, prefer spend winter periods in large tree hollows, where females also give birth to cubs. Threats include massive deforestation in these countries, combined with direct poaching of wintering bears—with selective destruction of the best hollow trees.[10] In Russia, attempts (sometimes successful) are made to restore such broken trees.[11] Unfortunately, only a small portion of all damaged trees can be restored in Primorye, where forests are basically logged without taking to account needs of large fauna."
I believe that in rare events an Amur tiger might stalk a large grizzly as potential prey. By large I mean 400+ pounds and upwards to 700+ pounds. The tiger's objective is to ambush and kill the bear. The prize is enough meat to last for many days. When ambushed, the bear's objective is to fight off the tiger and survive. I believe that, in most cases, the tiger fails while the bear succeeds.
The old on-line "beast war" of heated debates and arguments over which predator can defeat the others, which involved for the most part the lion, the tiger, and the grizzly lasted longer than America's involvement in Viet Nam. Of course, there were neither winners nor losers in those often ridiculous squabbles.
Brown bears are incredibly individualistic. This can be seen in and around a river where grizzlies are fishing. Each bear has his own individual fishing technique. Another prime example is where one grizzly, in discovering the fresh tracks of a tigers runs away from them, yet another bear in the same circumstance follows the tracks in the hope of discovering the remains of a tiger kill. The question has often been asked, "what takes place when a mature male grizzly discovers a mature male tiger feeding on a fresh-killed carcass?" To start with, no where near enough evidence has been found and certainly very little eye-witness reports to come up with a clear-cut answer. However, I have learned that a grizzly very rarely will challenge any large and powerful prey animal, such as a bull moose or a bull bison. For the most part, the bear would rather not risk serious injury or even death when he has other food options available to him. Then again, I have seen ( documentary ) a young three year old adolescent male grizzly stand his ground against a wolf pack ( each adult wolf nearly as big as the bear ). I believe that sometimes a mature male grizzly will indeed challenge a mature male tiger over a carcass. This would depend on the individual bear's personality, the mood he is in on this particular day, and just how much he needs or wants that tiger-kill.
Doug Peacock - Tigers and Bears - http://www.dougpeacock.net/siberia.html
Back in 2010, I ran across a book called Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival by John Vaillant that told an old story about a revenge killing in 1997 by a Siberian tiger of a poacher called Markov in a remote part of the Russian Far East. The big cat, whom Markov had previously wounded, ambushed and tore the man to pieces: "luminous stubs of broken bone protruding from the tops (of his boots), the tattered shirt with an arm still fitted to one of the sleeves," as the book described the remains. It appeared this huge male tiger had previously destroyed everything that had smelled of Markov, and then waited for him to come home. The attack seemed chillingly premeditated. About this time, as I read on, a chill ran up my own neck. Something about this tiger sounded familiar. I had been to this exact spot in 1992 and had run into a tiger. How old was this killer cat? I reread the book but all I could definitively glean was this was a very large male tiger. I think male Siberian tigers, like male grizzlies, continue to grow in size with age. Tigers can live to be 15 years old or so in the wild, although large tigers tend to be targeted by poachers and are therefore rare. The tiger who ate Markov was later killed but never weighed. An experienced eyewitness said he had “never seen a tiger as big as that one.” A male tiger maintains an exclusive range, driving younger males away or killing them. Siberian tigers have huge territories. Could the killer tiger be ten years old? Possibly. I do the math. Probably, I think. Dmitri Pikunov would know for sure. The book says Dmitri has had a serious heart attack or I would ask him directly: Is the killer tiger the same one we trailed in 1992? We crossed the tracks of the tiger in question four miles southeast of the Markov attack site. The Do-boys in SiberiaDmitri Pikunov and I were two-person tent mates on a kayak trip down the wild upper Bikin River in 1992. At least I think it was 1992. I dig out my field notebooks: Yes. Our journey was a buddy trip with five American friends: Jib Ellison, Doug Tompkins, Rick Ridgeway, Tom Brokaw and Yvon Chouinard (AKA the "Do-Boys"):—famed kayakers and mountain climbers, well, all except myself and perhaps Brokaw. We spent about three weeks in Siberian tiger country, the last ten days fishing and paddling down the wild Bikin River. We run into Dmitri in Ternai while struggling to break loose of the Russian bureaucracy and get into the wilderness. In order to visit the countryside, we are told, it is necessary to secure a permit from the Bureau of Tourism. The Director of Tourism offers us a river trip using our own kayaks for only $2,100 American. A truck and motor boat will accompany you at all times," he says. This is not exactly what we had in mind. I stare out the window of what until recently used to be the Communist Party building: A pretty girl is walking her cow down the street. "This is banditry,” says Brokaw who along with Jib has acquired the unsolicited job of group-diplomat. We are getting nowhere. Jib stands up and announces that "we are out of here, we are going home." These guys are good sports, they roll with the punches and there is no whining. By fortune, we run into Pikunov. He knows we are interested in preserving wild country. Dmitri’s greatest personal accomplishment, he tells us, was in helping establish a Native People’s Reserve in the Bikin for the Udege people. The Bikin River country, he argues, is "the most beautiful, most pristine of all." "You must see it,” he says. "Hyundai wants to cut it all down and Moscow will cave in to them." The die is now cast. We decide to ignore warnings that we must get permission from the KGB to travel: We will try to bribe a helicopter pilot on our own to fly us and our fold-up kayaks into the headwaters of the Bikin River. It can be done, we hear. We dig into our pockets and come up with a roll of cash that we pass to Dmitri. We find a chopper. Dmitri Pikunov says, “Speak no English.” He covertly passes the roll to the pilot. Soon we are airborne. We have a single map. The country is huge with no trace of man upon the land. The map shows the middle tributary of the Bikin River, the Zeva River, unfurling counterclockwise, flowing through eroded volcanic hills and cliffs of columnar basalt, finally hooking into the Bikin. That's where we want to go. Yvon and I look out the open window of the big military-style Aeroflot helicopter, the port that Rick has opened in order to take some photographs. As our only map of the area is passed back to me, I stupidly grab it in front of the window. In a heartbeat, half the map--the half that shows the Zeva and all the country we plan on kayaking--rips off and is sucked out the window. We are now map-less and I wonder what my carelessness portends. The boys, especially Tom, will later make me pay heavily for this blunder as the two of us vie for “worst” in kayaking skills. Nonetheless, rivers tend to run downstream. My journal tells of the last days of our trip, when we walked up the Amba River: "Amba" means tiger as well as "devil" in the native Udege tongue. We beach at the mouth of the Amba River and walk upstream a shot way to a trapper's cabin (which belonged to the “key witness” in the Markov incident) that Dmitri used in past years during his study of bears and tigers here. The Amba River bottom in summer is hot and humid. Dmitri leads us on a hike several miles upriver. Shoulder-high cone fern and alder obstruct our vision. Moss and shelf fungus grow on logs and downfalls. During the winters of his bear study here during the late 1970s, Dmitri would ski along the river and bang on cottonwood trunks with a heavy mace, waking the Asian black bears that hibernated within the hollow trees. The Amba is also prime tiger habitat. China lemon vine grows on the smaller trees, and cow parsnip and nettles make up the understory. Ticks hang off the low vegetation; we stop for a tick-check every fifteen minutes. This is our last day in the wilds. Tonight, we paddle on down to the big Udege village where we can hire a truck to haul us and our fold-up kayaks out to the Trans-Siberian railroad. We climb a steep hill to a ridge. There is wild boar and black bear sign everywhere. Dmitri signals for us to be quiet. Our crew is noisy, distracted, self-absorbed, talking of industrial collapse and geopolitics. Dmitri snaps at us to shut up. We can hear movement down the ridge. Up ahead we hear the breathing sounds of big animals--probably bears huffing away or boars snorting, all now running downhill. We blew it. The world is only as big as we allow it to be. Wild places and animals pass along their secrets only if we listen. You have to pay attention. A touch of danger would help. You need to know you can die: A surprise rapids the size of Lava Falls, a bad stretch of black ice across an ice chute, a white-out on a glacier, or maybe a bear or, especially, a tiger. But it's hard here on our last day out before the slow return home. It's especially hard in a group; the social dynamics can drain you of vital curiosity and attentiveness. I split off by myself for a short time. Asian black bear have ripped branches off trees everywhere. I find day beds of boar and bear; there is sign of digging around the large Korean pine trees. The big live oaks are lovely. It's good to be off alone; I find a bear-ripped honey tree and an ancient yurt on top of the ridge--built by either an Udege trapper or Chinese ginseng hunter. Dmitri signals for me to rejoin the group. We drop back down to the Amba bottomland, finding an old trail. Suddenly, Dmitri freezes and motions me forward: A tiger track glistens in the mud. The track in the wallow appears to be only about a day old, around five inches across--the print, Dmitri says, of a young but dominate (about five years old) male cat that has replaced the previous dominate male cat, who was killed by a poacher. The young tiger leaves scrape marks every few hundred meters and spray scents on territorial tree markers. We stop at such a tree. The bark has been rubbed off by Asian black bears who also are attracted to the strong scent. I get down on my knees and press my nose against the bare trunk. The pungent fetor of tiger fills my nostrils and--for just a second--I travel with the big cat, orange and black stripes flashing barely perceptibly through the sea of green undulating cone fern, into the wild and predatory world that not so very long ago was my own. If the huge male tiger who killed, dismembered and ate Markov in 1997 was ten years old, quite likely it was the same then-younger cat whose scent we snorted in 1992 on the Amba River. We were, at that time, less than five miles away from the Markov attack site. This brief account is largely borrowed from In the Shadow of the Sabertooth. Doug wrote a feature-length, unpublished magazine article about this wilderness kayak trip in 1992. For an excerpt, click On the Trail of the Siberian Tiger with the Do-Boys) Adventures Arctic Expedition Walking Point in White Bear Country Cabeza Prieta Counting Sheep The Bombing Range Siberian Tiger On the Trail of the Siberian Tiger with the Do-Boys Rivers Headwaters Yellowstone National Park The Newest Place On Earth Passions Adventures Arctic Expedition British Columbia Cabeza Prieta Rivers Siberian Tiger Yellowstone National Park Archeology & Ethics Buffalo Edward Abbey Grizzly Bears Mushrooms Vietnam
I own that book, I read part of it but got side tracked with other books, I'll have to go back and finish it up.
Could you post the story (or the link) in the tiger-extinction thread (without the last part of the post) as well? The reason I ask is I posted quite extensively on Vaillant's great book in that thread some time ago. I'd like the info on his book in one place in order to prevent readers to switch from one thread to another.
Based on the photograph in Vaillants book, I'd say the tiger wasn't exceptional in size. Many thought he was, because they never saw a bigger one in that district. That, however, is not surprising. Male Amur tigers often are quite a bit larger than adult females, they have large territories and can reach 12-15 years of age. The only tigers one expects to see in the territory of an adult male would be females, cubs and a few immatures. The tiger in Vaillants book still was in good shape when he was wounded and robbed by Markov. This is why he responded to the challenge. Vaillant was amazed, but those in the know wouldn't have been. Not all Amur tigers will deliberately target humans who hunt or wound them, but the Udege didn't take any risks and they had a lot of experience. Researchers who sedated wild Amur tigers never saw anything close to what Vaillant described, but they forget they didn't intend to harm the tigers. Things can, and did, go wrong at times, but it is about the intention and this is something many just don't take very seriously. Anyway. Good find and interesting read. Many thanks, Brotherbear! EDIT I saw you posted the link in the tiger-extinction thread already. Many thanks again, Peter. |
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