You might think that a rumble between a tiger and a bear would be a scrappy, brutal affair. But when a wildlife conservation area in India became the sparring grounds for those two unlikely foes this spring, onlookers watched a different story.
Safari goers watched the encounter inside Pilibhit Tiger Reserve, a protected area in India’s northern Uttar Pradesh state. Tense video footage shows a tigress (Panthera tigris) sidling along a dirt road. She’s one of the target species in the preserve, where a partially engineered ecosystem hosts hundreds of species of her prey animals.
But sloth bears (Melursus ursinus) — like the one that trundles out of roadside brush just meters ahead of her — aren’t one of them.
A mutual scope-out
But instead of a violent clash between rivals, the encounter takes the shape of a mutual scope-out.
The animals stand back and size each other up as the bear crosses the road and slips into the brush on the other side. The tension does break when the bear later charges. But if there’s any aggression involved, it doesn’t escalate.
A rarest of rare sight of a bear charging towards a tigress, captured today at Pilibhit Tiger Reserve- A CATS( Conservation Assured Tiger Standards) habitat developed assiduously by UP Forest Department.
Pl don’t miss the calm and composure of Big Cat even in face of attack &… pic.twitter.com/jU48UWpTqJ— Dr Rajiv Kumar Gupta IAS (Retd) (@drrajivguptaias) April 30, 2024
A wildlife photographer on the safari noted the tigress appeared to “surrender” in the encounter, while an ecology and conservation lecturer who was not on site said the bear wasn’t aggressive at all.
“The tiger took time to watch the bear, sizing it up possibly to understand more about it. The bear did not show a particularly aggressive charge from the video so the tiger must have decided it was big enough to stand its ground,” Tara Pirie, with the U.K.’s University of Surrey, told LiveScience.
As similarly sized apex predators, tigers and sloth bears don’t compete over identical resources. Sloth bears are omnivores that only prey on insects such as termites and ants. And, according to a 2022 paper in the journal Scientific Reports, they share the same biggest threat: road development in their habitat.
As the original poster of the encounter on X pointed out, nature takes care of itself.
“Don’t miss the calm and composure of Big Cat even in face of attack & nervousness and fear of bear aware of unequal status [sic],” Dr. Rajiv Kumar Gupta wrote. “Nature has many lessons to teach humans!!”
