Felids Interactions - Interspecific Conflicts

[peter]

FOOD HABITS AND PREY PREFERENCE OF AMUR TIGER AT THREE SITES IN THE RUSSIAN FAR EAST

This post has a few scans of an article published a few years ago. I got it from Ursus Arctos, who visited me in Amsterdam some years ago. Ursus now is a mod at Carnivora Forum.

I selected the most important pages. The table (last scan) shows that bears (Himalayan bears and brown bears) are an important food item in summer, especially in the south of Sichote-Alin (SABW). This " ... runs counter to previous assertions that the risk of injury was too high for tigers to regularly predate bears ... " (from the second scan). It's important to note that adult bears are included.

Tigers don't hunt bears because of a lack of other prey animals, but because they seem to prefer them over others. Tigers have learned to hunt bears in the Russian Far East, that is. In India, it is not a confirmed habit. The difference between Amur tigers and Indian tigers, therefore, is experience. Important, as Amur tigers, not as heavy as their relatives in India, are able to hunt larger bears. They also hunt them more often: 
 

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

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