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

[Apex Titan]

Frozen Planet II - Tigers hunting Bears

Yesterday on BBC One, I watched the first part (of 6 parts) of David Attenborough's new series: Frozen Planet 2. In the program, filmmakers captured footage of a Siberian tigress hunting for bears in a cave. After hearing reports of tigers hunting bears in Russia, and how tigers even enter bear caves to kill hibernating bears, the filmmakers placed camera's outside and inside a bear cave, hoping to capture for the first time ever on camera, a Siberian tiger hunting and killing a bear.

The filmmakers also captured interesting footage of a tiger licking the bark of a tree, which some time earlier, had a brown bear rub against it. The tiger was licking the tree as if it was craving and dreaming of eating the brown bear:

"And then there’s the beautiful, dangerous, near-extinct Siberian tiger, which appears to lament the presence of a (brown) bear by a tree. The tiger proceeds to lick the bark, as if dreaming of the meat that once stood there."

https://www.culturewhisper.com/r/tv/froz...ough/17144


Here's the tigress coming out of the bears cave, after failing to catch the bear. The Himalayan bear (months earlier) had retreated to the farthest part of the cave, and the tigress was simply too big to get through, so she had no choice but to leave:

*This image is copyright of its original author

Siberian tiger v bear: even David Attenborough ‘wowed’ by Frozen Planet II

The tension in the air was palpable as the group of television producers waited with bated breath to see what would happen as the Siberian tiger crept into the bear’s cave. This was a groundbreaking moment in the making of wildlife documentaries, and one that will be seen by millions who tune into Frozen Planet II.

It took three years of persistence and trial-and-error filming in Russian forests using remote cameras to get the footage of the tigers entering bears’ caves, said Elizabeth White – who worked on the original Frozen Planet and produced the award-winning “iguanas vs snakes” episode of Planet Earth II.

The tiger footage captured such a unique moment, it even took David Attenborough by surprise. White told the Observer that, after hearing reports that tigers sometimes caught hibernating bears, catching this on film was “a labour of love” and “seemed like finding needles in a haystack”.

“We completely failed the first year, so we shifted our location in season two and got some lovely shots – but no real substance. Then a local photographer said to us that our cameras were too big – the tigers are seeing them. We looked at the technology he was using, and sure enough the tigers were detecting the larger cameras.”

By then, “technology had moved on”, said White “and we were able to get a smaller camera that was high enough resolution, and we managed to get footage of tigers entering the caves.”

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/s...c-wildlife


“We also filmed a Siberian tiger looking for bears in Russia, which was incredible,” says the episode’s producer Alex Lanchester.

https://www.whattowatch.com/watching-gui...ed-to-know


Tigress hunting for bears:

*This image is copyright of its original author

All in all, this program and footage confirms that even tigresses actively hunt bears in Russia. Many people think that mostly male tigers actively hunt bears, but more and more recent evidence (2020-2022) strongly indicates that even female tigers are quite active bear hunters. Add to this, that there are numerous accounts from both scientific literature and recent news reports from Russian specialists and biologists, of tigresses, even juvenile tigresses, hunting and killing bears.

Bears are common prey for tigers and are a basic part of the Amur tigers diet (Sergey Kolchin). To capture footage of wild Amur tigers killing bears or any animal in summer and autumn, is almost impossible, so the best way is to place small cameras outside of bear caves to capture such an event.

Chris Morgan, a bear ecologist, wildlife researcher and conservationist, also learned that Amur tigers regularly prey on bears (both black and brown bears) and that some tigers actually kill and eat bears for a living. This was from his expedition and trip to the Russian Far East with Korean Siberian tiger expert and naturalist - Sooyong Park.

Go to 8:54 in this video:

Chris Morgan states: "Some of these cats (tigers) eat bears for a living. Pretty darn impressive carnivores."

They also eat some surprising animals - like brown bears! In one study, one male tiger ate more brown bears than anything else! Now thats one tough carnivore! I've worked with bears for many years, so this fact really stuck with me."

https://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/siberian...lbum/7907/


Filmmakers (Frozen Planet 2) also captured footage of a huge, very robust and very powerfully built male Amur tiger. The tiger had a massive skull, a large, thick neck, huge shoulders and forelimbs. A very impressive specimen. In fact, this male tiger looked larger, more powerful and more impressive than any of the male tigers that featured in Franz Hafner's recent documentary (Amur Tiger - Master of the Taiga, 2021) of tigers in the Bikin River Valley. Reply