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

[Apex Titan]

In addition to my previous post on Amur tiger predation on Himalayan bears, here's some more interesting notes on Amur tiger predation on Ussuri (Himalayan) black bears, the heaviest weights and aggression of Ussuri black bears, and the intelligence of the tiger from Mikhail Krechmar's (Russian bear specialist and hunting biologist) book on bears: "The Furry god".

The weight range of large Ussuri black bears:

"The largest of the white-breasted bears examined by Professor G.F. Bromley, a well-known explorer of Primorye, weighed 192 kilograms, the naturalist V.P. Sysoev got a male weighing 220 kilograms. The famous zoologist S.P. Kucherenko did not come across animals that weighed more than 180 kilograms. Zoologist Vladimir Aramilev shot a bear weighing 260 kilograms, which is an absolute record today."

The Siberian Tiger Project biologists weighed a large male Ussuri black bear of 205 kg (451 lbs), almost the same weight as the adult male tiger 'Dima' (455 lbs):

*This image is copyright of its original author

https://vladnews.ru/ev/vl/1360/53407/medvedi_batareykah


Aggression of the Ussuri black bear:

"However, despite the general syndrome of vegetarianism, the white-breasted bear is reputed to be the most conflicting animal in the south of the Russian Far East. In case of an unexpected meeting with a person, it is the “white-breasted” who is inclined, without hesitation, to go on the attack. It was this beast that marked with its claws many hunters in Primorye and the south of the Khabarovsk Territory." ...

"The rut of the Himalayan bears takes place in June-July. It flows, according to zoologists, in a rather calm form, but the bad bear character still makes itself felt, and therefore fights between males are a common thing. But they are not carried out with such bitterness as among the brown brothers."



Tiger predation on Ussuri black bears:

"As the main enemies of the white-breasted bear, in addition to humans, one can name a tiger and a brown bear. The tiger is the most constant and worst enemy of this beast. Some even claim that he prefers bear meat to other meat. But a significant share in this organic hostility of his is, of course, an innate hatred for any large predators that seem to him possible competitors and simply enemies. Tigers usually catch bears in small forests, in clearings and in other places devoid of large trees, where the bear used to seek its salvation."


A rare case of a tiger couple (mating pair) habitually hunting for bears, also showing the high intelligence of a tiger:

"During a tiger census in the winter of 2005 in the southern Sikhote-Alin, scientist Viktor Gaponov discovered two tigers that were purposefully looking for white-breasted bears lying in dens. Tigers literally “gnawed” these bears out of their dens, killed them and ate them." ...

"At first, this story seemed completely unbelievable to me - a white-breasted bear usually lies down in the hollow of a living tree, and is separated from the outside world by a ring of 20-25 centimeters of raw frozen wood. This tree hardly yields to an ax, and not only to the teeth and claws of the beast. In fact, it turned out that the tigers took advantage of the very specific conditions that developed as a result of a fire on one of the spurs of the Sikhote-Alin. The cedar forest on this spur after it fell withered on the vine, and from many trees, which then rotted, only the base remained in the form of a thin hollow "pipe" with a wall thickness of about five to ten centimeters. The tigers coped with this defense easily."...

"Scientists have found one Himalayan bear sitting on a tree with a torn off foot, and under the tree - traces of two large Amur tigers. The next day, the researchers returned to this place, but found only traces of a feast of striped predators. Local hunters claim that this is not the first bear hunt of the “striped couple”.

"Researchers of the Far East, such as N. Baikov and S. Kucherenko, consider the Amur tiger one of the main enemies of the white-breasted bear. But such a case of “brigade specialization” (hunting bears in pairs) of striped predators when hunting a bear was noted for the first time."

"In Russia, it is believed that the black bear is terribly afraid of even the tracks of a tiger. One trainer argued that if tigers “worked” in the circus arena, then the Himalayan bears then categorically refuse to do anything on it for quite a long time, even if the carpet is treated with sawdust with mothballs. However, in India, the Himalayan bear is not very shy in front of striped cats and happens to put them to flight. At least, such a famous hunter and fauna connoisseur as Jim Corbett writes about this with confidence. Although, I admit that the Bengal tiger does not inspire such respect (from a bearish point of view) as its Ussuri counterpart."

https://www.livelib.ru/book/147686/readp...rechmar/~9


In addition to the remarks about the weights of large Ussuri black bears, here is the tracks of a large male Himalayan bear, who had a palm callus width of 12 cm, similar in size to the 206 kg adult male tiger Dima (12.5 cm - palm callus width):

"For example, traces of a large bear (width of palm callus imprint - large pad of the front paw - 12 cm) approximately a day old were found on March 31, 2005 in the valley of the river."

*This image is copyright of its original author

https://elementy.ru/nauchno-populyarnaya...Khekhtsira

A Himalayan black bear with a large palm callus width of 12 cm, likely weighs 180 - 205 kg.


Conclusions:

1) Large male Ussuri black bears weigh up to 150 - 260 kg. The normal maximum weight is 200 kg, but much heavier males well in excess of 200 kg have been found. Sergey Aramilev (2021) stated that large male Himalayan bears can weigh up to 250 kg, Kolchin (2022) also stated that large, old males exceed 200 kg in weight, and have a body length of 2 meters. The STP biologists weighed a huge male Himalayan black bear of 205 kg (451 lbs), nearly the same weight as the adult male tiger 'Dima'. 

2) Ussuri black bears weigh an average of 130-140 kg in summer, but bear species have huge individual variation in weights and sizes. A full-grown adult male of one bear species may weigh only 145 kg, whereas another male of the same subspecies can weigh well over 200 kg. The weight/size variation is greatly pronounced. Some large male Himalayan bears get really huge.

3) Although tigers are solitary hunters and almost always hunt bears single-handedly, there are rare cases of a "Tiger couple" hunting bears. Jim Corbett also mentioned a well-known case of a pair of mating tigers that attacked and killed a large bull tusker elephant after a prolonged battle.

4) Although Bengal tigers also hunt and kill bears, the Amur tiger seems to strike fear in bears to a much greater extent. This is due to the fact that Amur tigers hunt bears far more often than Bengal tigers do. In fact, of all the tiger subspecies, the Amur tiger is the true 'bear specialist'. This is interesting because the bears (Ussuri brown & black bears) living in the Amur tigers habitats, are larger than the bears living in the habitat of the Bengal tiger.

5) The fact that tigers hunt and kill (primarily in summer & autumn) the largest male Ussuri black bears, and the largest adult female brown bears, strongly indicates that bears weighing 150 - 250 kg, are hunted by tigers. This was also confirmed by the large male tiger 'Dima', who hunted and killed huge female brown bears almost his own size.  Reply