I forgot to add that this show (Animal Face Off) is pretty interesting to watch and this particular episode will be re-aired on July 17th.
SIBERIAN TIGER:
Adult male weight 396-616 lbs.(180-280 kg). Head to rear length about 7 feet (2 meters).
BROWN/GRIZZLY BEAR:
Males reach their maximum weight of 330 to 1150 pounds in 12 years. Kodiak bears can grow to 10 feet long and weigh over 1,000 lbs (Jonkel 1984, p 22).
Making a Living: In general, brown bears will flee as soon as they detect humans. Finding food, finding mates, and avoiding being preyed upon govern a brown bear’s life (Stirling 1993, p 91).
P.S. I’ve read that some brown bears exceed 1,500 pounds.
Ooh, I know this, I know this. The bear was white!
I’m sure I read somewhere that one of the Roman Emperors pitted a lion and a black bear against each other.
Apparently they looked at each other a lot then both turned their backs and wandered to different corners of the coliseum.
The crowd got tetchy so they took the lion back inside and released a pack of dogs into the arena.
Nothing beats an old fashioned dog and bear fight.
Bears in general, including grizzlies, are far more timid then people give them credit for. They’re not even totally dependent on meat, instead making berries and other plant matter a significant part of their diets, unlike tigers.
Not too long ago I saw a show on the Discovery channel about bears. Part of the show demonstrated what sissies grizzlies actually were by having unarmed scientists walk up to a bear in the wild. In all cases, the bear either ran away immediately or charged briefly and then retreated. The show didn’t comment on the state of mind of a person who would stroll up to any carnivore.
Tigers, on the other hand, tend to be much more aggressive and intensely territorial. Although I can’t comment on Siberian tiger specifically, their close relative the Bengal Tiger regularly attacks and feeds on humans. Sometimes they will even swim out to boats in the middle of a river to attack people. Since they are excusive carnivores, I’d imagine that tigers in general would be more aggressive.
That said, were they to meet in nature under normal conditions, they probably would be wary of each other, but not unduly aggressive or fearful, since they have no genetic predisposition one way or the other. They’d probably wander away eventually. If a carcass were in the center of the dispute, the grizzly would likely leave the scene, leaving it to the tiger. Wolverines regularly chase grizzlies away from their kills, so it can’t be that hard. If defending her cub, though, a female grizzly will attack just about anything. I don’t know how willing a tigress is to defend her cub, but I’d but that would be the only likely circumstance where you’d have a fight.
Was the show you watched Grizzly Diaries with Timothy Treadwell? Cause he and his girlfriend were recently eaten by bears.