Siberian tigers & Amur leopards Photography tours! Come to discover wild Russia!

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(12-22-2018, 11:45 AM)Olga.bohai Wrote:

(12-21-2018, 11:33 AM)peter Wrote: Research says tigers hunt female brown bears with cubs more often than was assumed. You said that female brown bears, as a result, had left some districts. It's known that male tigers hunt bears in particular. When female brown bears leave a district, they have to find alternatives. Anything known on what male tigers hunt apart from bears? Or do they follow bears?

It's known that tigers, even those who often hunt adult female brown bears, do not hunt male brown bears. You said they seem to avoid each other. Is this true for both, or is one avoiding the other? What's the opinion of your guides on male tigers and bears?

According to Dmitry Pikunov, female brown bears with cubs can be dangerous. During his career, 27 people were killed by brown bears. Some of them were collegues. Would you say brown bears in the Russian Far East are more dangerous than elsewhere? Any particular reason?

I wouldn't say that tigers hunt bears (both males and females) intentionally, this is not their main diet, their favorite are wild boars. But they can kill and eat bears if they meet each other on the forest trails. They rarely follow bears in the forest.
Tigers hunt bears' cubs because it is easy for them. 
I wouldn't say Russian brown bears are more dangerous in the Far East than others, people are killed by brown bears mostly because of their ignorance and incaution in the forest. Almost the same reason for people killed by Amur tigers: may be 90% cases is human fault. All tigers which became human killers were attacked by the humans before.

I would say to this, that I haven´t found indication for it, that tigers would eat bears so much. In some reports there has been peaks making exceptions to what could be considered normal. But overall bears are in quite small part as food source for tigers, was it 1,5-2%. And when thinking bear size, that isn´t so many individuals per year after all. I am not sure to what exactly is based idea, that tigers would have been hunting bears more than was known. I don´t buy that at this moment at all.

When thinking, that there are both black bears and brown bears included and percentage is very low, it is not indicating to anything dramatic. Even though there have been times, when in some areas tigers have for some reason eaten more bears than usually, but not all the time. Some year or years only.

Or did I miss something? Reply