Big cat and Bear tale

[Shadow]

(04-18-2019, 05:16 PM)Pckts Wrote:

(04-18-2019, 04:46 PM)Shadow Wrote:

(04-18-2019, 03:28 PM)Pckts Wrote:

(04-18-2019, 11:49 AM)Rishi Wrote:

(04-18-2019, 09:56 AM)Shadow Wrote: One good case here to remember is that from Ankara zoo, where a tiger managed to get a lucky shot and kill a lion with swipe of paw as far as zoo personnel told and can be believed. So it was separated from lion but cold swipe with paw from between the bars and managed to hit and cut open jugular vein causing that lion to die. So there was no "death grip" from throat or back of neck. Just one very lucky tiger like some lottery winner and one very unlucky lion. These animals are after all flesh and blood, sometimes they can take unbelievable beating and survive, sometimes then not, one wound in wrong place and bye bye tiger or lion or bear. Anyway there are many ways to get killed by another animal and if some animal dies to massive bleeding caused by another, then it is usually said, that it was killed by that another animal. Of course it can be said, that it died to injuries caused by another animal if that sounds better.

That's irrelevant here. A big male sloth bear flailing away its 5 inches to writhe out of a tiger's grapple can cause serious injuries. There were several in this case.

(04-18-2019, 11:12 AM)Rage2277 Wrote: ...also while sloth bear claws are long and strong they're not designed to grip and tear flesh like cat claws,they do more damage with their teeth as could be seen with the matkasur and bear fight where matkasur sustained puncture wounds on his arms and chest area no visible claw marks i can recall

No. That statement is just plain wrong! 

Look up images of sloth bear attack survivors (mostly maulings) & see what type of claw wounds they can cause.
Matkasur got out of it with surprisingly mild damage... i don't know how, but don't expect it to always be the case.

Their claws are definitely not designed to rip and hook the way a big cats are, this is without question. Human skin isn't comparable to animal flesh, we have 0 protection.
Just watch the Tiger Canyon fight where the tigers are interlocked while their back claws Rip into each others stomach, you can even hear it and still they are unable to penetrate the skin, imagine the same thing happening to human being, what do you think the result would be.

In regards to Matkasur, he was never in danger, all bites or claws were defensive by the bear until the end when Matkasur tires and decides to disengage, but compare the wounds sustained to the bear to matkasur and it's not even close, the bear is bloody all along the face, neck and chest and lucky to be alive tbh. The tenacity of the bear and Matkasur inability to inflict a killing bite is what saved the bear but that's not always the case as bears fall victim to Tigers fairly regularly while the other way around is almost unheard. Just compare two situations, Matkasur is unable to kill a mother sloth bear protecting her young while the original KG Male of Kanha killed a mother sloth bear protecting her young in a matter of seconds, it just depends on the cat.

This is quite off topic from the news article though, and if a team of vets come to the conclusion that a large carnivore killed the tiger, the cat had puncture wounds and that is all, nothing about a sloth bear being the culprit, then to claim any animal besides another Tiger killed it is nothing more than a attention grabber but finding a cat days after it's been killed, then setting up camera traps which would take time to get then after all that you see a sloth bear within 150 meters is hardly a "smoking gun."

"But the bear had scratches"
Bears have scars all over their face, I didnt see a sloth bear that didnt have some damage, and they walk very gingerly regardless, they are an awkward animal.
So to assume that a bear is the culprit because it's near a watering hole that is frequented not only by bears, but other tigers and any other animal India has to offer.

"But they didnt find tiger pugmarks"
They didnt find bear pugmarks either, the Tiger was found in the water so it must of gotten their somehow and searching for pugmarks in the forest is impossible unless you see them on the dirt tracks or in a wet/muddy area where the print can be sustained and even then they're very difficult to see.

I know exhaustion or blood loss can kill a cat and that is possible, Its not being ruled out but according to the autopsy that wasn't the cause of the death so that's all we can go off of.

Lastly is the wound location... which animal between the 2 is notorious for attacking the head and neck region with their large canines?


I'll leave my opinion at that and wait for more news, then go from there.

This is a good example how differently some situation can be seen. But what comes to tigers they get wounds as any other animals. Bears can injure them, that is clear :) This was interesting case for many reasons even thoughts tigers tend to rise passions

Absolutely, there are no rules in the wild.
But that's not what this is about, it's possible a sloth bear could kill a tiger. But this istance isn't something you could use as a scientific example for that, this is an unsolved case atm.

Yes, I don´t think that they use too much time to investigate this further. After all main issue is to rule out poaching and other human caused reasons. After those reasons are ruled out it isn´t so important anymore to use too much resources to get 100% certainty which animal caused injuries. But we will see if something else comes up or not. But maybe the case is there, not likely that after 4-5 days something new would come up anymore. Reply