How would Bears do living in Africa?

[rj144]

Does Africa even have an NFL team? Jay Cutler would have been a stud there.

 

[Prefect]

He probably could handle anything from Africa.

 

[gspieler]

Bullshit. Those fights were in confined spaces where the big cats athleticism is limited.


Mountain Lions fight Mother Grizzlies in the wild and walk away all the time because the Cat is too fast and athletic.

Exactly. A big cat, even a tiger, is only going to take a grown bear in an ambush style attack. If forced to fight, the bear will win vast majority of the time. The athleticism of the cat will aid them in ambushing a bear, or more likely, simply running away.

 

[GordoBarraBJJ]

 

[Pseudo Sane]

Also about bear and big cats

In a fantasy Bear-in-africa situation i can see packs of lions kill them and eat them
With 1 or 2 male lions doing the muscle work and females as support

1v1 Bear v tiger already happen in Siberia and the result is that in direct fight the bear fuck the cat
Tigers get bullied away from theyr own prey by the bear (ironically there tigers do the same to wolves)
It happen tigers ambush bears at times, but not full grown males

Not to pick on your post but there is a weird fascination with positing predator versus predator fights in these kind of scenarios on Sherdog. These are insanely rare because any animal stupid enough to engage in them regularly is:

1) likely to get badly injured and die; or
2) a honey badger or some other mustelid that uses insane aggression as an adaptive strategy (aka the Best Korea Defense).

There is almost zero chance that a pride of lions would choose to hunt an adult grizzly bear except as a result of great need. The lion's preferred killing method, suffocation by cutting off the windpipe, would be virtually impossible to accomplish on an adult grizzly, because it would put the lion directly in the line of the bear's paws, and would almost certainly prove lethal to any lion which tried it. It would also greatly surprise me if a bear tried to initiate a conflict with a lion pride. Any such conflict would be pretty likely to result in both the lions and the bear getting badly injured or killed.

Large predators almost never choose to fight one another because it is stupidly risky. Usually the animal that is less confident will back off unless it is desperate.

The real issue is adaptability to the environment, food and water. The biggest challenges would probably be venomous animals, securing sufficient drinking water, and heat management.

I am pretty confident that bears could do well as scavengers, as well as be able to hunt a number of typical prey animals (zebras, wildebeasts, etc.), since I don't think they pose any challenge that a bison or an elk doesn't, and bears manage to eat them just fine.

 

[TheLastSpartan]

Physiology aside, grizzlies in the open savannahs would be reduced to scavengers and opportunist predators much like hyenas. They'd be on the constant defensive from far more adapted pack predators like lions, hyenas, and wild dogs and herbivores like elephants and rhinos.

In the African jungles they'd fair far better and they would prey on the species in that locale including gorillas and chimps.

 

[Bob Gray]

You do know that there literally used to be bears that lived in Africa right? The atlas bear was a brown bear species that was introduced to Africa during the Roman empire and had an expansive range access northern Africa. It did well except for all the humans hunting it to extinction.

Why do people say "you do know..." when they obviously know the other person does not and just want to present some tidbit of information in the most dickheaded way possible?

 

[Bob Gray]

This came up if I'm not mistaken in the last thread, and it was explained that there are differences.


Either way, people here seem to think full grown Tigers are only like 600 pounds. When males average more than that, and can easily exceed 800 pounds.


Bengals and Siberians btw, tho Siberians do tend to be bigger.


The point is, there's a lot of false assumptions out there based on controlled experiments from years ago (like fights, where there wasn't a lot of room for the big cat to use its advantages), and also based off of people assuming Lions=Tigers same same.


Tigers attack everything in their territory in the wild including Elephants, and there are documented accounts of them killing them. There is footage of Tigers diving into rivers and killing full grown Crocs for stealing their food. Grabbing full grown Crocs -in the water on their own turf- and dragging them back to land to kill them.


I'm not saying a big ass Tiger Vs a Grizzly is a lock for the Tiger, but I'd be willing to bet if they did cross paths constantly in the wild there would be documented cases of Tigers killing them. Especially when there's fuck tons of footage of much smaller Mountain Lions getting into brawls with them and surviving and in some cases injuring the Bears.


The Tiger is one Cat that's a game changer in these discussions. They are on the very top of the planet Earth bad mother fucker scale with Orcas, big Bears and so on.

They definitely have a distinct lack of fucks.

Dude is riding an elephant.

Vid:



Scariest thing about the whole incident is the goddamn thing is like 20 feet away and youd have no idea.

 

[Halge]

They definitely have a distinct lack of fucks.

Dude is riding an elephant.

Vid:



Scariest thing about the whole incident is the goddamn thing is like 20 feet away and youd have no idea.

Serious hang time.

 

[Bacco]

cut

Believe or not i agree with you
I'm the first that find awkward as fuck the lion vs tiger internet thing for example, with peoples obsessed with stats, vs videos (filmed in captivity) and pics
You got "tiger fans" and "lion fans" super engaged at dismiss each other LOL

One of the most bizzarre attitude i ever seen on the internet, wich say a lot

About the lions attacking the bears, my reasoning is kinda simple: when given chance lions attack/kill basically every competitor carnivore in africa be hyenas, leopards or cheetas.
Crocs are an exception and mostly i think because they don't share the same field (ground/water) and are at huge disadvantage in each other camp, so there's not or rarely direct competition
I don't think i ever seen a vid of lion/croc kill each other, at best some tug-of-war next to water or lions harassing crocs out of water but never involved to the point of risk damage (first instinct of wild animals) to kill it

The clash can easily happen in a scavenging situation, imagine the bear bully away AWD/hyneas from a kill and then a group of lions arrive to do the same to him
I'm imagining scavenging scenario because hunt will be harder than his usual habitat: preys are just as fast if not more, and savannah terrain favor runners and long runs with less chances of ambush, specially with his big ass

And in chasing he may be slowed down too, by heat and lower energy (lack of water/food to be in optimal shape)

Bears are crazy tough, but a group of lions will be too much, specially if there's more than one male
Also on big preys they have been seen use a different approach than suffocation (wich is'nt impossible either), males take the back/rear and bite the spine (often with some other attacking the head/throat)
Bear is very strong but not bulletproof like in fantasy internet fights where every animal got borderline superpowers
Even a lioness have the weapons to cause a bear some damage, let alone fierce big males
Cumulative damage is a thing, for how i see it the bear either go away (like in some confrontations with wolves) or end up killed

Plus if lions realize what good source of food the bear can be the clash will get an extra factor, see how tigers already take the risk hunting on smaller/female ones

Last but not last even assuming healthy, heavy, strong, sambo champ bear can truly survive a full clash with a pride of lions (and that's a big if)... how long he will manage to keep that health status?
As you said heat, water and food (even just vegetal) will be far from his usual habitat, chances are he will very weakened in few days... and if i don't like his chances healthy vs a lions pride, a weakened one sound very fucked

 

[Bacco]

You do know that there literally used to be bears that lived in Africa right? The atlas bear was a brown bear species that was introduced to Africa during the Roman empire and had an expansive range access northern Africa. It did well except for all the humans hunting it to extinction.

I know it, i was the one that put the link to the Atlas Bear wiki page... but at same time Atlas Bear is kinda a bad example, as it lived ONLY in the north africa area, while TS i guess want to know about bear's chances to be a big bully in the subsaharian savannah plans y/n

At that's a whole different game... i agree with zookeeper Gabe, on best chances belong to smaller type of bears, and still they will just go for the bush doing theyr omnivore thing, i can really see it happen

But a big bear random dropped in the middle of savannah screaming "i'm the new badass!" like TS is imagining?
Yeah, good look with that

 

[Clippy]

well, i dont know if they would fully adapt to the heat and the lack of a heavy winter

If we gave them air conditioned power suits it would make them the king of the jungle

 

[weich]

They definitely have a distinct lack of fucks.

Dude is riding an elephant.

Vid:



Scariest thing about the whole incident is the goddamn thing is like 20 feet away and youd have no idea.

I've heard the guy in the video lost a finger, or fingers, from that paw swipe too. Tigers are amazing animals. I think it says a lot about cats that we can have 150 to 200 pound domesticated dogs, but our biggest domesticated cats are 20ish pounds(not including obese animals).

 

[AGGAMEMNON66]

They definitely have a distinct lack of fucks.

Dude is riding an elephant.

Vid:



Scariest thing about the whole incident is the goddamn thing is like 20 feet away and youd have no idea.

The Elaphant is backing away too lol. That says a lot.

 

[AGGAMEMNON66]

I've heard the guy in the video lost a finger, or fingers, from that paw swipe too. Tigers are amazing animals. I think it says a lot about cats that we can have 150 to 200 pound domesticated dogs, but our biggest domesticated cats are 20ish pounds(not including obese animals).

Your house cat would try to kill you if it was big enough lol. Cats are designed to be predators from top to bottom.

 

[IIIIIIII]

It's closer to 45 but maybe when I first read that it could have been kilometers.

At any rate, bears are the most surprising animal in terms of ability. Not to mention lols per hour.

I never get tired of this gif of a bear accidentally whupping himself in the jewels. #NEVER

not sure if you've seen this, but bears are really damn smart and hilarious. this never gets old lol:

 

[weich]

not sure if you've seen this, but bears are really damn smart and hilarious. this never gets old lol:

I've eaten at that restaurant. It's in Colorado Springs.

 

[IIIIIIII]

I've eaten at that restaurant. It's in Colorado Springs.

cool. as an aside, have never been to colorado. have to visit sometime.

 

[weich]

cool. as an aside, have never been to colorado. have to visit sometime.

I wasn't born or raised here but I've come to love the state. We have great beer, great weed, and an amazing variety of things to do.

 

[Hollywood Jack]

Sun bears are more tropically-adapted than other bears. They're the smallest bear by far, but would still be dangerous predators. Don't think they would compete with lions, though. Too small, and they're not pack animals.