Amur Tigers

[Apex Titan]

@GreenGrolar 

Quote:Some of the articles do talk about tigers killing large bears. However, there is no specific mention about the age, gender and condition of the animal.

Bears of the Russian far east are far from small animals, their some of the largest species of bears on earth, that are similar in size and in some cases even bigger than a tiger. You've seen what big bears look like, their massively built, robust and powerful animals. So in spite of the fact that the gender, age or condition (Note, tigers primarily hunt bears in summer and autumn, when bears are in peak condition and weights) was not mentioned, it still proves that large bears, which are at least similar-size and weight to full-grown adult male tigers, are hunted and killed. Which is impressive to say the least.

Tigers hunt large adult male black bears (the largest subspecies of Asiatic black bears on earth), which can weigh 190-200+kg in the summer and fall, and the largest and healthiest adult female brown bears. Which can weigh well over 200 kg. Baikov also stated that large tigers hunt and kill bears of the same weight. 

Now considering all these facts, you can gauge the size of the large bears hunted and killed by tigers.

Quote:Regarding male brown bears killing male tigers, there is none mention in Siberian tiger project, however, they seem to be mention in this article below:

*This image is copyright of its original author

Again, your posting very unreliable sources, that is reporting pure misinformation. Firstly, this is a book about North American predators and was not written by an expert on tiger and bear conflicts in Russia.

Your source states: "Adult bears are generally immune to tiger attacks in summer". This is clearly wrong and easily debunked by modern scientific studies and research.

The vast majority of adult bears (brown & black) are hunted and killed by tigers in SUMMER. So the reality is the exact opposite.

There's not a single case in history, scientific literature or any article (from biologists etc) of a brown bear ever killing a full-grown adult male tiger. The oldest male tiger ever killed by a brown bear was a young male aged around 4 years old and the bear was 'very large' in size. So the author of this book is clearly stating nonsense and lies.

This source also states: "Tiger attacks on bears tend to occur when ungulate populations decrease, and occur mostly in the late autumn and early spring." ...

This statement is blatantly wrong, as proven by my previous posts, (and posts in the extinction thread). Tigers mainly attack and kill bears especially in summer and early-mid autumn (snow-free period), as modern scientific studies and research clearly shows. 

*This image is copyright of its original author

http://www.neaspec.org/sites/default/fil...%9D%B4.pdf


From the Siberian Tiger Project; According to their studies in the Sikhote Alin Reserve, tigers hunted bears (bulked up bears) mostly in the fall. In the summer and fall, the percentage of bears in the tigers diet is significant:

*This image is copyright of its original author

I know your not denying the fact that tigers mainly hunt bears in summer, I'm just posting these sources to show you that the author of this book is just blindly writing misinformation and old, outdated opinions from the last century which isn't backed up by any evidence or modern research, so this book source is very unreliable. His statement of full-grown adult male tigers being killed by brown bears is completely false.

I advise you to post evidence and sources from actual experts and authorities. (biologists, researchers, zoologists etc)

Quote:That is probably included in the 12 cases of the brown bears winning although the statistics favours the tiger.

The tiger prefers to hunt not for brown, but for Himalayan bears. N. Rukovsky himself in the wake once determined that a brown bear killed a tiger. The bear was very large (this was visible on the trail), and the young tiger was about 4 years old (it was visible on the skull). The battlefield itself (broken fir trunks with a thick arm, scattered shreds of wool, blood) testified to a long and fierce struggle."

The four year old tiger might not be full grown but it is at least close to being so.

Yes, the author is most likely talking about the 12 cases of brown bears killing tigers in those statistics, in which he got his facts totally wrong because NO adult male tigers were killed by brown bears. Only young male tigers were killed.

A 4 year old male tiger is still immature and lacks the size, strength, power and experience of a fully-grown 6+ years old adult male tiger. Note, the young 4 year old tiger was still able to put up a long and fierce struggle against a very large brown bear. 

Now imagine the bear fighting against a fully-grown adult male tiger?  An adult male tiger is a whole different story and level.

Quote:

*This image is copyright of its original author

I agree with this source to some extent. When hunting brown bears, tigers will usually avoid hunting the large male brown bears. But notice, it doesn't say "always" or "never", it says "usually". There's a difference.

David Prynn's statement suggests that large male brown bears are hunted by tigers in some cases, but not usually.

The last part of the highlighted statement is wrong. When tigers hunt brown bears, male tigers more often prey on adult brown bears, not cubs. (Tkachenko, STP biologists).

The tiger 'Dale' habitually hunted adult female brown bears, biologists found only one bear cub killed by him. The rest were adult bears killed.

Tigers are 'energy maximizers' that prefer to hunt large animals equal to or exceeding their own size. Thats why tigers mostly hunt and kill adult bears, that will provide plenty of meat and maximize their energetic return. Hunting mostly juvenile bears and cubs is useless and will not provide the energetic return needed.

Quote:Some tigers have learn to hunt bears yet they seem to be unable to prevent adult male brown bears from taking their food. These male brown bears are probably much heavier. There are adult male brown bears that have fled at the sight of tigers but again according to Grizzly Years, the grizzly bears have the personalities of the seven dwafts - some are more timid than others. It seems every animal has aggressive and timid specimens of their own.

*This image is copyright of its original author

These tigers that are unable to prevent adult male brown bears from taking their food, are female tigers, not adult male tigers. Read the context from the chapter 19 study. And food relations studies from Seryodkin, Miquelle etc.... The word "Tigers" used is a general term. 

Also note, in vast majority of cases, large male brown bears actually wait for the tigress to finish eating and leave the kill before approaching and scavenging the left-overs. This is the most typical case, as reported by Seryodkin, Goodrich, Miquelle and others.

FOOD RELATIONS OF THE AMUR TIGER WITH BEARS IN THE SIKHOTE-ALIN RESERVE

"Regarding how the tiger's prey fell to the bear, the most typical situation was when bears took possession of the remains of the prey after the tiger left the prey. Such circumstances amounted to 44.4% for bears of both types and for brown bears, 55%. At least there were 4 cases when bears, finding tigers on their prey, chased them away. Four (11.1%). Cases when a tiger victim had traces of the simultaneous presence of a tiger and a bear was noted by us 4. In all cases, they were brown bears and female tigers."

STP biologists and researchers, in 25 years of field research, never found a single case of any adult male brown bear ever directly usurping the kill of an adult male tiger, period. Biologists, zoologists and researchers (Alexander Batalov, Dunishenko, Tkachenko, Kolchin etc) who study tigers in the Khabarovsk region, have also never found a single case of a large male brown bear ever usurping the kill of an adult male tiger. So what does that show you?

That statement from Miquelle also suggests (can easily be interpreted this way) that adult male brown bears are killed in clashes over food with tigers, and because of this, some tigers learnt to hunt brown bears.

Adult male brown bears prefer to contest female tigers, "LEST IT BECOME AN ITEM OF TIGER DIET"... i.e. because contesting a male tigers kill would be suicide for the bear.

*This image is copyright of its original author

Quote:I remember Linda Kerley saying that amur tigers can kill bears up to the largest female brown bear which does not contradict Bart Scheleyer, who said although the tiger generally kills brown bears, 100 times lighter, but not always. Here is the email:

I already explained to you about Bart Schleyer. He's only ONE biologist who's research and observations were very limited compared to other biologists and researchers who have decades more experience in the field than he did.

You can't base your conclusion solely off one single biologists account, because other accounts suggest otherwise.

Also, you need to realize that Schleyer ESTIMATED the size of those bears killed by tigers, he never weighed them. So how on earth can he know for sure that the tigers had a 100 pound weight advantage in most cases??  Could have possibly been a 60-80 pound weight advantage, we'll never know.

Anyways, Schleyers accounts happened in winter (snow-tracking tigers), not in the snow-free period i.e. summer and fall, when tigers primarily hunt adult brown bears. So Schleyers account doesn't tell us much.

Quote:Tigers also prey on two or three bears of two species per year. From Siberian Tiger Project.

*This image is copyright of its original author

Siberian Tiger Project biologists are merely referencing Kucherenko, this is NOT their statement or results. In fact, their very own research debunks Kucherenko's statement. Also, this is old outdated info from Kucherenko. Far more recent studies (2010-2017) show that tigers hunt and kill way more bears than Kucherenko suggested back in 1977. 

How can tigers only prey on three bears of two species per year, when numerous modern studies clearly show that tigers regularly prey on bears in the summer and autumn months?? With bears making up a large significant percentage of the tigers diet.

There's also habitual bear-hunting tigers that prefer to hunt and eat bears instead of ungulate prey animals. Adding all these factors, its most likely that at least 100 bears are killed every year by tigers.

Kucherenko also stated this in his book:

"Brown and black bears are common victims of the tiger throughout its range, and he hunts them especially diligently, and eats the crushed ones with obvious pleasure and fuller than a wild boar or red deer."

"The tiger also hunts very diligently for usually fat bears, and eats this prey most fully (it is appropriate to recall that all predators prefer fat to lean)."

https://www.litmir.me/br/?b=559283&p=1

Quote:Hungry predators do attack anything in their path (especially when they have been starving for a while), however, it does not mean they always win. Regarding the tigress killing a male brown bear, I think that brown bear must have been 170 kg, Warsaw posted that account (probably). 170 kg is hardly a full grown male Ussuri brown bear but it is still impressive. The other is a very old account when an old male grizzly got severely injured by a train before a tigress killed it.

I'm not talking about those cases. The account of the full-grown adult male grizzly bear killed by a tigress, was from a old newspaper article. Why are you bringing up this case? Its irrelevant.

The 170 kg adult brown bear (unknown sex) that was killed by a tigress was reported by biologist, Bromlei. Here's the account:

*This image is copyright of its original author

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Q9wH...wQ6AEIODAC

I'm talking about this account, mentioned by biologist Kucherenko, of a tigress that stalked and killed a big male brown bear much larger than herself. This incident was eye-witnessed by his colleague:

"Of course, all my attention was riveted by the tiger. It was a female. Small, with salted nipples. I was surprised at her courage, and even self-confidence - the bear was much larger in size and had remarkable strength. It was later that I learned the reason for her courage and decisiveness: they were built on a strict calculation of their actions, surprise attack, agility and swiftness."

"The tigress, of course, took care of her life for the children more than for herself, and if she decided to attack the bear, to know, there were good reasons for this and confidence in victory."

"She sneaked up exactly like a domestic cat: slowly, with fading, silently moving her paws. The tigress did not take her yellow burning eyes off the victim and definitely calculated her every step towards the approach to the distance of the decisive jump." ...

"There were only two tiger leaps left for the unsuspecting bear, but the striped one for some reason hesitated. And I realized that she built her calculations on a single jump. She either waited for the prey to inadvertently approach her, or was looking for a convenient moment in order to approach herself. A minute passed, another stretched. I forgot about the retreat because of the stress, although I kept my gun in constant readiness. And here it is, the right moment!  When the bear buried its head in the dug hole, the tigress jumped onto another boulder some five meters away from the "beetle" who had lost all caution."

"She jumped on him from that boulder. It jumped with such a deafening roar that I completely died out. However, I clearly saw her in a jump - with her mouth wide open, her front paws spread with her claws extended In that tiny fraction of a second, the bear could only turn around and rise, but he did not have time to scatter his paws in order to embrace the enemy, as it is customary in such circumstances in a bear race. I think that it was on all this that the tiger jump was built. The predator with a strong swing of its clawed paws slashed the victim from top to bottom along its open belly, immediately dived with its head between the enemy's hind legs to its very shoulders and with a sharp jerk threw the brown hulk through itself, by its tail ... that this beast is capable of throwing so much weight twice its own." ...

*This image is copyright of its original author

"The bear roared and rolled, more and more entangling itself with blue guts. From horror and pain, at first he did not even think to find his enemy and take revenge, which is also inherent in the bear's nature from birth. But in his last breath, he found the tigress with his eyes and crawled towards her, but crawled already with dying fading. She was lying on a boulder, whipping herself with her tail, in full readiness for another jump, the final one. However, he was not needed."

"The tigress approached her prey already at dusk. There was such silence that I could hardly breathe, heard the beat of my heart and caught every step of the amba on a dry leaf. And I couldn't decide what to do. I knew that she would spot me at the first movement, and that it would have to go around that place in a considerable circle. Moreover, the tigress was agitated and very dangerous."

https://www.litmir.me/br/?b=170047&p=33


About this book:

The author of the book is a well-known Far Eastern writer, scientist, hunting biologist, candidate of biological sciences. For many years he studied the ecology of the tiger. The stories about meetings with the lord of the Ussuri taiga, written on the basis of factual material, allow us to learn a lot about the habits and lifestyle of a rare Red Book predator. In short stories - and pride for the magnificent beast, and compassion for his misfortunes. The author urges readers, all residents of the Amur and Primorye Territories, to respect the rights of the animal to its tiger house, to be responsible for the survival of the Amur tiger on our planet.

https://www.labirint.ru/books/475154/

https://www.ozon.ru/product/vstrechi-s-a...j7-xVb8LeQ

Quote:Tiger's also become the usual winner because they can choose which bear they want to attack in the wild. Sometimes I do wish that they will be more good real life videos on this. Adult bears include any bear that has recently left its parent. For example, the three year old bear killed by Boris was classified as an adult but is not sexually mature yet. Tigers and brown bears sexually mature around the same time but the latter takes longer to reach full grown adult hood.

Firstly, its rare for 3 year old bears to be called "adults" or bears that have just left their parents. Experts still call these bears either subadults or juveniles, but not adults.

Also, the juvenile tiger 'Boris' killed TWO BROWN BEARS on record. One was a young brown bear, the other was an adult brown bear of unknown age and gender. But the bear was an adult bear killed. This was already discussed and established on Carnivora forum. When assessing this case, its important that we read first-hand reports from the Russian specialists who reported this account. Like this report ...

Tiger Boris remained on the territory of the Amur Region. He repeatedly made forays into the Jewish Autonomous Region, but regularly returned to the place of release. Hoofed prey was not a problem for him. Once a case of hunting an adult brown bear was recorded.

http://tiger.sevin-expedition.ru/news/news_144.html

There's also this Russian news report:

In the meantime, the authorities of the Oktyabrsky and Zavitinsky districts, knowing about Boris's movements, advise local residents not to take dogs with them into the forest, so as not to provoke the tiger. People are also forbidden to approach the remains of animals, as they can be Boris's prey. It is known for certain that he had a successful hunt for an adult brown bear.

https://vladnews.ru/ev/vl/3749/104508/tigry_leopardy

And why are you ignoring the fact that tigers also fight with adult brown bears over kill-disputes??  I've posted plenty of authentic information about this in the extinction thread and other forums. In these cases, the tiger is not "choosing" which bear to attack. It defends its kill against ANY bear, and this is when fights erupt, in which the tiger usually dominates and defeats the brown bear in these clashes.

How can a tiger "choose" which bear contests its kill?? That makes no sense.

When it comes to face-to-face fights between tigers and bears (not tigers choosing which bears to attack) over kills, the evidence, statistics, reports and accounts from biologists, naturalists, experienced hunters and locals etc ... all heavily favour the tiger, and prove that the tiger wins most head-on fights against brown bears. Again, I posted plenty of information on this.

From renowned tiger biologist and ecologist - John Seidenstecker

When a tiger returns to its kill and finds a wild boar or brown bear scavenging the kill, the tiger has a chance to kill another big meal:

*This image is copyright of its original author

https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/C...frontcover

This explains why many brown bears have been killed in fights by tigers over kill-disputes.

Quote:Personally, there does not seem to be a specific account of a mature male brown bear between 9 years old and above being killed by a tiger. The most capable of doing so would be the 600 pound tiger (an exceptionally heavy one):

*This image is copyright of its original author

Yes there is. Chlamid was a fully-mature and huge male brown bear that was killed and eaten by a tiger. I'm sure he was most likely well over 9 years old.

This is my source (and screen-shot) you posted, and it favours the tiger. It states that tigers are immensely strong and are known for taking on (preying on) heavyweight adversaries, including Himalayan black bears and brown bears which can weigh as much as 605 pounds. My point exactly. Tigers hunt and kill big brown bears. Reply