Tiger Predation

[Apex Titan]

@Pckts 

Your logic and arguments are flawed and make no sense.

Quote:Ustaad was over 4 at the time and was also mating with a Female. So not only was he ran off during mating but both of them were actually ran off.

On top of that, I literally named 4 off the top of my head and that was just territory holding adult males, I could have doubled that amount for adult females and could add many more by doing even more due diligence. So the point being, your claim of this 

is wrong. 

Was Ustaad a full-grown adult male tiger?? NO. Was he a prime male tiger? NO. He was a YOUNG ADULT. There's a clear difference between a young adult male tiger and a fully-grown adult tiger aged 6+ years old.

The examples you mentioned, I already knew about. Again, Matkasur initially fought the sloth bear (easily dominated the bear for most of the fight) and although he retreated in the end, it was the BEARS THAT FLED back into the jungle wanting nothing to do with that tiger. Matkasur kept his watering hole.

Then you mentioned another example of T-57. You claimed that there were "numerous" videos of sloth bears running off territorial adult male tigers. Where are they??  Do you know what "numerous" means?

Like I said, there's only VERY FEW videos of sloth bears running off adult male tigers, far from "numerous" like your claiming. I could post many videos of adult sloth bears, including male bears, fleeing from juvenile tigers and tigresses.

So your clearly wrong.

Quote:I never said there wasn't, but I can all but guarantee you that there are more of Bears engaging and running off Tigers than the other way around. 

Nope. 

There are many videos of tigers of all ages and genders chasing off adult sloth bears, videos which people like to ignore. In fact there's videos of adult sloth bears spotting young juvenile tigers and tigresses from a distance, and retreating back into the jungle to avoid confrontation. Not to mention the countless accounts there are of tigers killing and eating sloth bears.

Quote:You don't seem to know how to qualify "evidence"
You think accounts with no eye witness proof or verifiable data counts as "evidence."
This is shown by you posting Valmik blanket claim.
I can post numerous eye witness accounts and videos, images and so on of real encounters showing that the relationship is far from one sided. I also have access to far more people who actually safari there often on top of doing it my self and getting numerous first hand accounts from guides and naturalists. 

So scientific peer-reviewed studies, reports, data and accounts from numerous BIOLOGISTS, ZOOLOGISTS & RESEARCHERS is not "evidence", field observations and reports from a renowned Bengal tiger expert like Valmik Thapar is just "blanket statements", but empty claims and guesswork from a mere forum poster like yourself, a totally unqualified person in the field of zoology and biological sciences etc... is right??

Your ignorantly denying the evidence and reports from actual field experts who are a million times more qualified than you in this regard. These biologists have spent DECADES of their lives in the field, studying and observing tiger predatory behaviour and habits. That says it all.

You wanna know how the encounter went? Well, the bear ended up in the tigers excrements, so what do you think happened?

And your "numerous first-hand accounts" from guides and naturalists doesn't even compare to scientific peer-reviewed studies and decades of field research by actual biologists and researchers. So please, don't go there.

You can deny the facts all you want, but it doesn't change reality and the fact that Amur tigers regularly prey on bears, an established fact observed, documented and confirmed by numerous biologists and researchers. Tiger predation on bears has been reported for over a century now!

Quote:What do you consider "frequently?"

Because as of now I've seen 2-3 instances of bears being predated on. And on top of that, even fewer of actual encounters and more so fecal samples which will never give you a true understanding of what occurred, the age or sex of the victim or if it were a scavenged carcass or not.

"Frequently" means regularly. Your seriously telling me, that after years of (you) posting on different forums (AVA, Wildfact, Carnivora), your only aware of 2-3 cases of bears being predated on by Amur tigers?  Are you serious? How is that even possible? For years, many different posters have posted countless accounts of Amur tigers killing both brown bears and black bears, and your telling me you only know of 2-3 instances! Wow.

Quote:Show me what study states that Bears make up a significant portion of a Tigers diet. On top of that, explain the process they went about determining it and the data shown to back it.  

I've already posted this study, and you know exactly which threads I've posted them on. But here you go again: Why do I have to explain the process? Read the study yourself.

A comparison of food habits and prey preference of Amur tiger at three sites in the Russian Far East

"In addition, bears constituted a significantly higher proportion of tiger diet in the summer, and while not significant, badgers increased in the diet of tigers during the snow-free period as well..."


"The increased predation on bears and badgers is likely due to their increased availability following emergence from hibernation and the increased vulnerability of their young, although tigers do prey on adult bears. Amur tiger predation on bear is not a new phenomenon, but our results, in addition to identifying seasonality in tiger predation of bears, also suggests that bears constitute a relatively large portion of tiger diet, particularly during the snow-free period. This runs counter to previous assertions that the risk of injury was too high for tigers to regularly predate bears." (Miquelle et al. 2010)

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Dal...r-East.pdf

I can post plenty more information proving that Amur tigers regularly hunt and kill bears. This is an indisputable fact.

Quote:Again, this isn't backed by fact, this is opinion. What evidence does Pavel have to state that? How many first hand accounts has he seen or heard of? You seem to put too much stock in their title and not enough in actual occurrences. Biologists can be sensationalists and make assumptions just like the rest of us. Which is why when actual predation studies come out, they contradict many so called "rules of nature" after the fact. 

Instead of quoting blanket statements that have no factual evidence, present actual data that back your claim. I.E. Research papers, eye witness accounts, videos, carcasses, hearsay and so on.

Oh yeah, because biologists and scientific researchers mostly base their conclusions off of pure guesswork and worthless opinions, right?  The decades of field observations and experience studying wild tigers and bears means nothing, right? Their qualifications in biological sciences and zoology also means nothing, right?

These "experts" only dedicate their entire lives working in wild nature reserves with tigers and bears, studying their feeding habits and behaviour etc... what do they know??

I have posted research papers, eye-witness accounts and pictures of carcasses to back my claims. What are you on about? Read the extinction thread, I posted PLENTY of information! And Pavel Fomenko mentions in the video that he observed a case of a tiger that killed a bear and dragged its carcass a kilometer to feed on it.

An example; Here's the remains of a fully-grown mature male black bear that was killed and eaten by a tiger. Sergey Kolchin followed the tracks of a male tiger in the snow, and found his bear kill:

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

https://www.facebook.com/sergey.bears?fref=nf

Sergey Kolchin is one of Russia's top leading tiger & bear specialists and biologists, and this same biologist (based on his field observations) also stated that bears are common prey of adult male tigers:

"But this is if the tiger's teeth are in order. And, of course, the paws, with the help of which the tiger makes throws, grabs and holds the caught prey. Red deer and wild boars, not to mention bears (the usual prey of adult male tigers), are able to stand up for themselves with dignity."

http://debri-dv.com/article/5993

But let me guess, your gonna say this is another "blanket statement" ?  

Quote:Right, because the small Female Sloth Bear wasn't fighting for her life against Matkasur. Again, I've seen a big, Male Sloth Bear in person and I've seen a big Male Tiger in person, they are comparable. Obviously a Tiger is bigger but not by as much as you think and in regards to more powerful, the fact that Bears run off Tigers often enough prove that the Tiger respects their power. You know the only other animals that run off Tigers? Gaur, W. Buffalo, Rhino and Elephant. All of which substantially more powerful than a Tiger. 

Long story short, you sensationalize the Tiger too much. The Tiger is the Apex predator of it's terrain but the Bear is a serious threat at any point which is why Sloth Bears don't run fast, climb trees, live in herds or sneak about yet they share the same territory with big male Tigers and do so in almost every park that exists regardless of the Tiger population.

Again, another badly flawed argument. I've seen videos of lone cheetahs chasing off adult lionesses, does that mean lionesses in general, respect the cheetah's power? Does that mean cheetahs pose a "serious threat" to lionesses? I've seen large male grizzlies and black bears fleeing from tiny little dogs, small domestic pigs and cows, so does that mean the large bear respects the small pigs and tiny dogs power? Does that mean the little dog or pig poses a "serious threat" to the huge bears?? There's other examples of jaguars and other large predators getting run off by much smaller and weaker animals, so? What does that prove? Nothing.

No, bears run off juvenile tigers often, not adult tigers. Juvenile tigers and tigresses also run off adult sloth bears, it goes both ways.

I'm not sensationalizing the tiger, your just overrating the sloth bear. What about the larger Ussuri (Asiatic) black bears in Russia, that are well known (and regularly do) to flee up tree's at the sight of a tiger?  In fact, those bears spend most of their time in the tree's to be safe from tiger predation, you know why?... because Amur tigers attack and kill bears far more often than Bengal tigers hunt bears. So both brown bears and black bears in Russia have more reasons than the sloth bear to fear the tiger, because the Amur tiger regularly preys on bears, whereas Bengal tigers not as often. So sloth bears don't need to flee up tree's as much.

If the sloth bear co-existed with the Amur tiger, it would be a totally different story. But still, there are numerous accounts of Bengal tigers killing and eating sloth bears throughout history. And if sloth bears posed such a "threat" to tigers, as you merely assume, then there simply wouldn't be plenty of accounts of tigers hunting, killing and eating sloth bears, period.

(Credits to GuateGojira):


Tiger biologist, Dr Raghu Chundawat observed that tigers in Panna, regularly preyed on sloth bears:

*This image is copyright of its original author

Bear ecologist & expert, K. Yoganand has also reported cases of tigers killing sloth bears:

*This image is copyright of its original author

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=EU3i...rs&f=false


So the fact is (which is acknowledged by wildlife experts and biologists), the bear is no longer an "apex predator" in the same forest as tigers, because they are on the tigers menu and often get killed and eaten. 

Although Amur tigers prey on bears far more often than Bengal tigers do, in some areas like Panna, it seems that sloth bears are regularly killed and eaten by tigers.

And are you telling me that you think a big male sloth bear is capable of killing a male tiger in a fair fight to the death?

I posted an account of a tiger killing and eating a large male sloth bear. The bear tried fleeing up a tree from the tiger, was pulled off, and killed by the tiger in a fight. Reply