Big cat and Bear tale

[brotherbear]

When tigers hunt bears, I feel sure that the tiger separates black bears from brown bears, knowing their different habits. But I doubt that the sex or age of the bear has any bearing on the big cat's choice of potential prey. Size matters. This goes for all bears, black or brown. Although a tiger does not put a bear onto a set of scales, he seems to have a picture in his mind of the size limit of which bears to stalk and which ones to avoid. This, I suppose, comes from perhaps a million years of hunting bears. Instinct. That size limit seems to be roughly 400 to 450 pounds (  roughly 193 kg ). This size range includes juvenile and adult she-bears. The famous tiger named Dale ( among other given names ) including "the bear killer" was known to have a preference for bear meat. Of all the many bears Dale killed, only two were adult she-bears. It appears that bears within the 200 and 300 pound range are the most sought after prey bears. 
I believe that, should tigers come into contact with Himalayan bears which are much smaller than the grizzlies of the Russian taiga, even full-grown boar brown bears will be viewed as potential prey. In my opinion, it is not the sex of the bear that matters to the tiger, but the size. Reply