Tiger Predation

[Apex Titan]

(06-22-2022, 06:55 PM)Pckts Wrote:

(06-22-2022, 06:42 PM)Apex Titan Wrote:

(06-21-2022, 09:06 PM)Pckts Wrote: I disagree a bit, there are plenty of instances of Bears going out of their way to run off Tigers and succeeding in doing so. There are also plenty of accounts of Tigers running off Bears, I don't think either is unusual. But only one is a successful predator of the other which is what separates them. But if anyone has ever seen a big Male Sloth Bear in person, they'd be quick to say there is no way that is an easy kill. A Tiger is certainly risking quite a bit taking one on in a fair fight.

Most of the videos of sloth bears running off tigers consist of bears chasing away young tiger cubs, juveniles and subadults. You can clearly see this in the videos. But there are videos of young tigers/juveniles chasing off adult sloth bears. I haven't seen any videos of sloth bears chasing away a full-grown adult male tiger.

A tiger can easily kill a big male sloth bear by ambush, as they swiftly kill larger species of bears (i.e. Brown bears & Ussuri black bears). In a fair fight against a big male sloth bear, the tiger certainly risks injuries, but still, in the end, the tiger will always kill and eat the bear. Although the large male bear will usually put up a fierce fight before being killed.

A mortal combat between a Bengal tiger and large male sloth bear is a mismatch in favour of the tiger. At best, the bear can fend off the tigers attack or injure the tiger, but in a fair fight to the death, the bear stands no chance.

That’s not true, I can post numerous videos of Bears running off territorial males. 

And there is no easy kill of a large male Sloth Bear, nor is there an easy kill of any adult Bear. Maybe a Tiger gets lucky and is able to snap a neck in an ambush but more often than not the fight is going to be drawn out. This is why Tigers don’t regularly prey on Bears even though Bears would be easy to catch.

"Numerous videos" of sloth bears running off territorial adult male tigers??  Show me?  Maybe one or two, but "numerous", no way.

Your argument is flawed because in Russia, the Amur tiger regularly preys on larger species of bears than sloth bears. In fact, its normal for Amur tigers to habitually hunt bears, and as the studies show, tigers frequently kill and eat adult bears. 

If most attacks on adult bears is going to result in a drawn out fight, then Amur tigers wouldn't bother hunting adult bears on a regular basis then. But they do, because tigers have the strength, skill, power and weaponry to take out an adult bear swiftly.

Just because Bengal tigers don't "regularly" prey on bears, doesn't mean that its because most attacks will result in a drawn out fight. Bengal tigers differ from Amur tigers. They specialize in hunting large herbivores like gaur, water buffalo, sambar etc... whereas the Amur tiger specializes much more in bear-hunting than their south Asian cousins.

You see this in other big cat subspecies too. Cougars and jaguars from one region can specialize in hunting more dangerous prey than cougars and jaguars from other regions. It all depends. Note, some Bengal tigers have become habitual bear-killers, which means they were able to easily kill adult sloth bears without any struggle in most cases.

An old, withered 17 year old Waghdoh, practically on his last legs, was able to kill an adult sloth bear with no problem. That says it all. Reply