behind the big cat's and bear's, who is the top predator?

[Styx38]

Quote:The paper you reposted is not included here, so you do not actually know if this is the same instance as the other one, you're simply guessing. Furthermore, even if that was the case, in the NatGeo article which Dr. Elbroch - one of the most renowned cougar biologists - himself wrote, more details are given about the interaction between the two Carnivorans, and he specified they were both adults. 

Yes, that is the guy who confirmed it was a sub-adult Bear here.

source: Allen, Maximilian L., L. Mark Elbroch, Christopher C. Wilmers, and Heiko U. Wittmer. "The comparative effects of large carnivores on the acquisition of carrion by scavengers." The American Naturalist 185, no. 6 (2015): 822-833.

Also, he was involved with source from 2015, so he confirmed it after the other sources.


The Bear was mentioned to be 3 years of age in one of your sources, so it is a sub-adult.

Black Bear age studies


"We designated bears in their second year of life as yearlings, 2- and 3- year olds as subadults, and >=4-year olds as adults"

source: Lee, Daniel J., and Michael R. Vaughan. “Dispersal Movements by Subadult American Black Bears in Virginia.” Ursus, vol. 14, no. 2, 2003, pp. 162–170. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3873016. Accessed 15 May 2021.



"Survival rates for subadult black bears tend to be lower than for adult black bears in North American populations (Bunnell and Tait 1981, Schwartz andFranzmann 1991, Beringer et al. 1998). Subadult bears, especially males, are capable of traveling long distances and have larger home ranges, making them more susceptible to harvest, automobile collisions, and other anthropogenic of mortality (Schwartz and Franzmann 1992).

"Additionally, we attached ear tag transmitters or radiocollars to a sample of subadult bears during the handling process. All transmitter-equipped 1-, 2-, and 3-year-old males and l-year-old females received ear tag transmitters, while 2- and 3-year-old females received ear tagtransmitters (i.e., bear weight <45 kg) or radiocollars (i.e., bear weight >45 kg)."

source: Lee, Daniel J., and Michael R. Vaughan. "Yearling and subadult black bear survival in a hunted Virginia population." The Journal of wildlife management 69.4 (2005): 1641-1651.



"Black bears will occasionally kill and cannibalize other bears. Most cannibalization documented in Maine has been on subadult bears (2-3 years of age)"

"Adult males (4 years of age and older) often dominate food sources, and adults are known to prey on smaller bears. However, black bears do not actively defend territories."

"Female bears remain within or close to the area they were born in, but males disperse as subadults, usually at 2-4 years of age in Maine (Hugie 1982, MDIFW file data)."

"By the time female bears are adults (4 years of age), their survival increases to nearly 100% in the absence of hunting."

source: McLaughlin, Craig R. Black bear assessment and strategic plan 1999. The Department, 1999

Quote:Hyenas are not the best at killing large ungulates solo, very rarely do they go out of their way to bring down antelopes such as kudu on their own, something that cheetahs seem to do without a problem. Hyenas can certainly do so, but they would rather scavenge than actively hunt.

No mention of lone Hyenas hunting  in that source.

Actually, Hyenas are pretty good at killing adult Wild animals and  Cattle.

Spotted Hyena predation in Ngorongoro Crater.

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author


Höner, Oliver P., et al. "The response of spotted hyaenas to long‐term changes in prey populations: functional response and interspecific kleptoparasitism." Journal of Animal Ecology 71.2 (2002): 236-246.


Of course, while the most killed animals were adult Wildebeest in both periods, they were the most abundant prey item. They also killed more adult Zebra compared to Zebra foal.


For domestic animals, Hyenas killed adult Cattle and Donkey compared to juveniles.

Hyenas also favored large domestic animal adults, like Cattle and Donkey in Zimbabwe.



"Hyaenas showed strongest selection for donkeys in all sites, while avoiding goats in Tsholotsho and Mvuthu-Shana, but showing weak selection for goats in Mabale. Hyaenas avoided attacking cattle in Mabale and Mvuthu-Shana, but showed some selection for cattle in Tsholotsho. As with lions, most hyaena kills (59.7%) were adult cattle and donkeys."

*This image is copyright of its original author

source: Loveridge, Andrew J., et al. "Bells, bomas and beefsteak: Complex patterns of human-predator conflict at the wildlife-agropastoral interface in Zimbabwe." PeerJ 5 (2017): e2898.











Hyenas killed less adult Cattle than Lions in Tsavo National Park, but still more than Cheetahs.

*This image is copyright of its original author

Patterson, Bruce D., et al. "Livestock predation by lions (Panthera leo) and other carnivores on ranches neighboring Tsavo National Parks, Kenya." Biological conservation 119.4 (2004): 507-516.

Quote:Wait did you even bother to read what the paper you're quoting actually said? *facepalm*, the paper is not mentioning low mortality rates due to cougar predation, but due to the winter, cougar predation was in fact the overwhelming cause of mortality among guanacos:

So? 

Adults were killed on a lower level despite the heavy winter.


"Overall, adult guanacos experienced surprisingly lower levels of mortality (adult male = 1%, adult female = 2%) than expected, despite the severe winter conditions, while juveniles experienced higher levels of mortality (13%) than expected



"Of the 33 observed mountain lion kills, 26 were successfully classi®ed by sex and age class. Adult males composed 15% of the total mountain lion kill, adult females 27% and juveniles 58% (males = 31%, females = 27%; Table 1). Adult males and females were killed by mountain lions less than expected and juveniles were killed c. three times their available proportion in the population (w2= 25.12, d.f. = 2, P < 0.0001; Table 1, Fig. 2)."



Previous research on the effects of mountain lion predation on this same population reported that adult male guanacos were preyed upon less by mountain lions than expected, whereas adult females were killed close to or less than their proportion in the population"


Also, 33 were killed by Mountain Lions, with 26 being confirmed.

So there were about 11 adults killed (0.42 * 26)

Of the adults affected by the winter, only 0.86% were actually killed by the Cougar ((11/1271) * 100).

So a relatively low number of adults were killed by the Mountain Lions.



Guanaco are still heavily weakened during the winter.

"Population dynamics and demography of ungulates are often influenced by age and sex-specific susceptibility to predation (Curio, 1976; Taylor, 1984; Pierce, Bleich & Bowyer, 2000a). Differences in physical condition can increase individual susceptibility to predation because predators may select prey in poor condition in an effort to conserve energy and reduce potential injury (Mech, 1970; Peterson, 1977; Ackerman et al., 1984; Huggard, 1993; Pierce, Bleich & Bowyer, 2000a). During winter, when nutritional quality and abundance of forage decrease, snowfall can limit the amount of range accessible to ungulates (Gilbert, Wallamo & Gill, 1970). Deep snow makes foraging energetically costly and may cause starvation, decrease overall fitness and potentially increase the spread of disease (Jedrzejewski et al., 1992). Following winters with deep snow, population demography can be affected for several years. Surviving animals generally are malnourished, resulting in lower fecundity the next breeding season (Schaller & Junrang, 1988). Furthermore, severe climatic conditions during winter can act either directly or indirectly by making ungulates, such as guanacos Lama guanicoe, more susceptible to predation (Franklin, Johnson et al., 1999; Sarno, Clark et al., 1999)."

https://zslpublications.onlinelibrary.wi...6902001334


So it is obvious that Mountain Lions killed the Guanaco in the poorest conditions.


The reason why I used Camels was because these kill rates were close. Not to mention these are both Camelidae. 

Quote:The adult eland cows killed by leopards were only two, if their biomass would've been substantially greater than 300 kg, then the overall average in the study would have been larger as well

You missed my original point. It was not to talk about how far away Cows are from the 300 kg minimum, but rather the kill rate proportion comparison.

I'll try clarifying it more:

' So male Cougars, which are around 72 kg in Alberta with an 81 kg specimen kill 400+ kg animals like Feral Horse and a the Moose. They did make up <2% of the kills.

Now, Eland female can also reach and surpass 400 kg (300 kg minimum), but let us use minimal weights.



500 kg/72 kg = 6.94                            300 kg/41 kg = 7.32







Keep in mind that the male Leopards in the Little Karoo region were averaged at 41 kg, which is among the smallest of subspecies.



They managed to kill 2 female Elands out of 93 kills, so they had a 2.1 % kill rate.


This would mean Leopards and Cougars can kill animals up to around 7 times their weight at a similar rate (2%).'

Quote:I'm sure you can see this happening, it has yet to be documented in real life though.

These estimates were based on these two authors.

This is the lowest estimation of Eland Bull killed by the Leopard.



"A single leopard has been known to bring down a full - grown bull eland , weighing over 454 kg ( 1,000 lb )"



   Wild Cats by Caroline Brett · 1992 · ‎



 "Leopards have been known to kill bull eland weighing 500kg ( 1 , 100lb )"


source: Predators: Great Hunters of the Natural World by Malcolm Penny, ‎Caroline Brett, ‎Gaby Roslin · 1995

Oh, and this feat was even mentioned in a documentary.

At 0:37

The feat has been reported and documented many times, so I am not concerned about your opinion.

Quote:Leopard predation on zebra has been almost completely focused on juveniles and foals, cougars killed more sub-adult and adult horses by comparison throughout Alberta and have been linked to limiting the herd sizes of horses in the Patagonia. They are specialized equid hunters.

Let's get this right.

 Leopards occasionally kill adult Horses.


"On 20 October 2005, an adult horse was killed by a large male. Fresh tracks of an adult female accompanied by a young cub were regularly seen near the kill, but we are not sure if they have fed on the kill."


source: Farhadinia, Mohammad S., Alireza Mahdavi, and Fatemeh Hosseini-Zavarei. "Reproductive ecology of the Persian Leopard, Panthera pardus saxicolor, in Sarigol National Park, northeastern Iran: (Mammalia: Felidae)." Zoology in the Middle East 48.1 (2009): 13-16.


The source you posted also shows an adult Zebra killed by Leopard, so Leopards can occasionally kill adult Zebra.

*This image is copyright of its original author

source: de Ruiter, Darryl J., and Lee R. Berger. "Leopards as taphonomic agents in dolomitic caves—implications for bone accumulations in the hominid-bearing deposits of South Africa." Journal of Archaeological Science 27.8 (2000): 665-684.


Mountain Lions can occasionally kill adult Horse, as you and other have posted before.



However, they typically focus on juveniles.

Quote:All the horses M166 killed were younger than 14 months. The largest horse he is documented to have killed was about 350 (158 kg) pounds. Mustangs are generally on the smaller side of horses, usually weighing between 700 and 900 pounds. Larger wild horses might weigh 1,000 pounds. Their foals are much smaller, about 100 pounds or less.

https://americanwildhorsecampaign.org/me...ler-horses



"The horses suffer predation by cougars and jaguars in almost natural levels.....with some 70 kgs, the cougar is too small to kill an adult horse, unless the horse is in decaying state, but it does feed on foals."

Translations from the book "Caballos en Compania" where the relations between cougars and wild horses 


"We note that feral horses were absent from the prey killed by cougars during this study. While there was some evidence cougars have preyed on foals before in the area, our study showed cougar predation cannot be consistently counted on to limit this horse population and continued management will be necessary to maintain this population within herd objectives."

Blake, Linsey W., and Eric M. Gese. "Cougar predation rates and prey composition in the Pryor Mountains of Wyoming and Montana." Northwest Science 90.4 (2016): 394-410.


I mean if you want to point out that Cougars are better documented to kill Horses, then I guess you are correct. However, just acknowledge that killing an adult is relatively rare.

Also, Leopards go for sub-adult Wild Cattle.

Quote: Showing deceptive "size comparisons". That involved sub-adult guanacos next cougars and adult camels next to leopards, the intention with that was rather clear. You can try to hype the leopards up all you want, bringing unrelated species to the posts to conflate cherry-picked pictures and data as a means of making the leopard seem more powerful is nothing short of desperation, particularly when we look into the data in more detail and realize that your conclusions couldn't be more wrong.

I  will apologize for the sub-adult Guanaco since I was not fully sure about them or their growth stages.

If you want, I will compare wild prey.



Sri Lankan Sambar was found as Leopard diet due to relatively high frequency.

"Sambar are abundant in HPNP, congregating in large herds in the open grasslands. 

Sambar appear to compose the largest proportion of leopard diet here with >75% of scat containing sambar remains (n > 30; Ranawana et al. 1998, Rajapakse 2003)."

source: Kittle, A. M., & Watson, A. C. (2018). "Density of leopards (Panthera pardus kotiya) in Horton Plains National Park in the Central Highlands of Sri Lanka." Mammalia, 82(2), 183-187.


Guanaco was found highly in Cougar diet due to high frequency

"We identified prey remains using reference collections and a hair identification key of mammals (Chehébar and Martín, 1989) Frequency of occurrence was calculated by the number of stomachs/intestines containing a prey item divided by the total number of stomachs/intestines."

"The main prey consumed was the guanaco, both in terms of frequency of occurrence (61.9%)"

" Considering our results, the presence of guanacos -with medium to high occurrence probability in the study area (Pedrana et al., 2019)- may potentially mitigate predation losses as observed for other carnivores and their main wild prey (Meriggi and Lovari, 1996; Stahl et al., 2001). "

Llanos, Romina, and Alejandro Travaini. "Diet of puma (Puma concolor) in sheep ranches of central Patagonia (Argentina)." Journal of Arid Environments 177 (2020): 104145.


Oh wait, you will probably whine that something about the Sambar Deer, so I guess Camel is a better choice.


Oh, and this is the closest comparison to Camelids.

You don't like that?

Peter liked my post.

*This image is copyright of its original author

Sully gave a plus one for my reputation for this post.

*This image is copyright of its original author

Just because you hate it does not mean it is a bad comparison. Reply