Bear Strength

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(10-30-2019, 02:18 PM)johnny rex Wrote:

(10-06-2019, 10:11 AM)Polar Wrote:

(09-05-2019, 05:15 PM)johnny rex Wrote:

(02-02-2019, 07:07 AM)GrizzlyClaws Wrote: Dog got pinned several times by a Black bear cub.

Bears can be said as natural born wrestlers. Just look at how male bears fight with each other. Those "paw swipes that break bones" stories maybe are just exaggerations, bears tend to use their forelimbs to hold and wrestle prey or competitor to the ground not swiping hard.

Those might not really be exaggerations. Depending on where they hit, a bear's super-dense paw may actually break the shoulder, chest, or pelvic area of a weaker big cat since they have greater radial robusticity and bone density than the feline. Radial robusticity (think of a wide-framed man throwing a hook) increases impact from the side with greater hip rotation.

If you mean "a weaker big cat" like a sick lion or tiger, smaller big cats such as a jaguar, a leopard, etc. yes maybe. Is there any book or source that said bears have greater bone density?

These are complicated discussions. If we have a 400 kg bear and a 200 kg tiger or lion, it´s only logical conclusion, that the bear is significantly stronger. When we look at a 200 kg bear and a 200 kg tiger or lion, situation is totally different. And I doubt, that anyone here can really prove, is in such case a bear or a big cat stronger. Not with current available information. There are no reliable and comparable tests ever done to these animals. So all opinions are based more or less in speculation and controversial information. I would avoid to say "weaker big cat" unless able to back up such claim with clear size difference. Saying something as it would be self-evident, while it isn´t, tends to just provoke unnecessary and endless debates.

More interesting is to see information and/or incidents, which prove some level of strength. It´s very difficult to find out, what kind of performance is on upper limit of some animal, when it really puts "all in". Some incidents give hints. Naturally a big bear can be considered as the strongest terrestrial predator, size difference to any "competitor" is simply overwhelming. But reality is also, that not all the bears are huge, brown bear is a good example from very small subspecies/populations to "monsters" living in Kodiak Islands, Alaskan peninsula and Kamchatka peninsula. Those biggest of the big are in their own league, no contest there. How strong they are really? A good question, I hope that some day more information about it. Reply