Brown bear vs. mountain lion (video)

[Trip20]

I thought you all might find this video interesting, especially if you've hunted either species.

This video is of a brown bear and mountain lion encounter. It appears the mountain lion is guarding some cubs.

I think this might have turned out differently had the bear taken one swat at the lion.

Show's how mothers will risk their own life and limb to save their youngens.

No gore. But website may not be work safe. Best viewed at home.

[jhgreasemonkey]

Good thing for the cougar the bear was in a lazy mood. I enjoyed watching that. Thanks.

[sanctified]

no kitty thats my potpie...no kitty, thats a bad kitty.

really, +1 for the cat.

[dragonfire]

Link wouldnt work for me.never downloaded

[GlocksRfun]

That is one lazy bear. He just stood there and took it. Cats are crazy. The bigger the cat, the more crazy. Seeing the reasons bhind it all, it turned out pretty good. If that bear had any motivation what so ever, that probably would have turned out differently. A good video either way. Thanks

[Double Naught Spy]

While the bear definitely could have taken the lion, it does not mean the bear will take the lion.

I don't think the bear was hunting the lion, so the food motivation for fighting the lion doesn't apply. Even if hunting, carnivores often opt to engage in limited risk endeavors. We often call criminals "cowards" because they pick on the old, the you, the sick, or any other unsuspecting persons. They are describing in doing the cowardly thing of laying in wait so as to use concealment, camoflage, etc. to be able to mount an attack that is a surprise to the victim. Limiting risk isn't about being cowardly. It is about being successful. Calling the bad guys cowards is more about us trying to make ourselves feel good about the attacked person, never suggesting the victim was an idiot for being an easy score, poorly watched if the vic is a child, etc. It is all about the bad guy.

In the wild, animals of small size often overcome larger animals that are not goal oriented big animals trying to eat the small animals. If not starving, then the small fighting animal is judged to be too much trouble and the predator moves on.

Sometimes, you simply get a larger animal that has encroached on the territory of the smaller animal, for whatever reason. The smaller animal can drive away the larger animal who sees the smaller animal more as a sort of annoying pest than a threat.

There would probably be a lot fewer of these imbalanced encounters won by the underdogs if animals carried grudges like humans.

The narration sounds like Marty Stouffer from the "Wild America" TV series. As such, the fight is likely staged, not just caught on camera. The cuts to the kitten really drives home the encounter being staged as do the other camera angles. In just what real world natural event would you expect to be able to capture a mountain lion with cubs that fights a bear and be able to do so from multiple camera angles, indicated you had multiple cameras at the unplanned event?

If it is a Marty Stouffer production, then it is almost definite that the event is completely staged and may even be with fully tame animals. He has been quite creative in the making of his documentaries, but the problem is, they aren't really documentaries, but fabrications of what Stouffer thinks you should be seeing in the wild, mixed with some actual wild footage.

http://outside.away.com/outside/maga.../9606diwi.html

As such, the clip cannot be considered of being representative of any sort of real behavior in the wild as it isn't depicting an actual wild event...like Starsky and Hutch isn't real either. That may, in part, account for the lack of gore. Note the lion really made no attempt at the bear's face, nor trying attacking the neck. Instead, the lion batted at the top of the bear's head that was presented to her and bit an ear. These are very non-critical sorts of areas to attack when dealing with an animal many times larger. Notice the bear slings off the cat with a sort of shoulder lob quite easily, then gives up the attack. Note the bear never tried to harm the cat. In other words, the fight was more of playful wrestling than a life and death struggle - staged. The cuts to the overly concerned kitten, bear roar, and cat roar are classic production garbage.

[Maximus856]

Video is downloading.. However, in nature I think it has a lot to do with the size of the fight, not the size of animal. For example, I have one cat, and 3 dogs. The 3 dogs are ALL half pitbull, with 2 of them being half lab, and the third being half bull dog. Labs love chasing cats, and pitbulls, well they don't really (usually) like too many other animals. But I have seen the two older ones (the lab/pit mixes) try to get the cat, but the cat stood her ground and swatted leaving a nice (deserved) gash on the dogs. I think a lot of times it's just the confidence and determination of the animal for survival...Thats why my small little cat fended off my dogs when we all know the dogs could easily crush her skull. Just my opinion though..

-Max.

[lizziedog1]

Actually, most predators are not really fighters. They usually kill by ambush or going after sick or injured prey. A wound sustained during a fight can make any animal vulnerable to infection or unable to fend for itself.

Recently I saw something on television about this woman hiking somewhere in British Columbia. She encountered a bear. the bear was not thrilled with her being in his territory. The lady had a husky with her. The husky challenged the bear and it backed down and left. Now, that bear could have made short work of the dog. But, if the dog even got one lucky bite on the bear and caused a wound, the bear's future would have been in jeopardy.

Attacking to kill and eat is not exactly the same as fighting.

[formerflyer]

Seeing as how I count at least 3, maybe 4 different camera angles on this, plus the fact that the cameras are darned close given the framing, I'm going to vote for a staged scene.

[cje1980]

Cats are pretty darn tough and mean. I don't think the cat could have killed the bear but I also don't think the bear could have killed the cat. I would say its something like this. The cat doesn't have enough strength to put the bear down but the bear doesn't have half the quickness that would be needed to incapacitate the cat. I think most bears would simply leave in this situation.

[lizziedog1]

CJE1980
Actually, cats have one major disadvantage when it comes to fighting. Sure, they have tremendous pwer and unbelievalbe quickness, but their stamina leaves a lot to be desired. Cats can do much damage, but has it has to be done quickly. As the battle drags out, the advantages would go to the other animal. This is one reason that mountain lions avoid wolves.

Wolves do not have the weaponary of a large cat, but they could fight all day. Wolves will pursue herds for days on end looking for a weak or sick member. A large cat has to ambush and catch the prey quickly. After a few hundred yards, the prey will probably be home free.

[bermo61]

Hey this reminds me of all the questions I used to ask my dad is a kid....if a bear and a mountain lion got in a fight, who would win?

Actually i heard a story of a Gorilla who had a run in with a leopard in a zoo when their cages were joined accidentally. Even though the gorilla could have easily killed the leopard because of it's tremendous strength, the leopard killed the gorilla because the gorilla was frozen with fear, and was mortally wounded before it could fight back.

There is a lesson to be learned here for gun owners i think!

[PSE]

thats a BS staged vid. absolutly no way that a camerman could hold a camera that still while crapping his shorts. no way.

[yorec]

The rule of the wild is always take the easier route unless your survival or that or your young depends on it. The bear and lion both followed it.

Now, if that bear had been starvin' guess we'd have seen a much different video...

[Dave R]

I agree that this is not a "fight." And is quite possibly staged.

The bear never fights! Even when the lion starts chewing his ear, the bear never uses its paws. Just shakes its head. Why would the bear not take a swat at the lion? And after the lion chews its ear, the bear's ear seems undamaged. Hmmmm.

Makes no sense to me.

[PSE]

the closeups, the dramtic framed hissing. the even horizontal left/riht panning. noone can do that free hand. that is a staged mounted camera postion w/ the animal actors put "on the spot" to act.

[nefshooter]

I don't know about you guys but i have seen 2 male house cats going at it and could see hair flying!!!! the cats didn't weight 10-15 pounds each!!!!!!!!

[PSE]

try putting a 10 pound housecat in a pillow case then think about what it must be like to get attacted by a tiger.

[PPCLI 2 can.]

it was a real footage recorded by a remote camera gathering info on the nature of cougars and there young, the camera was not right there neither was the camera man, it was probably 20 yards away and remote controlled to move. the footage was edited later to show she had cubs ect ect
anyways her reaction reminded of me of how my mom acted when jahova witnesses came to the door when i was a kid

[PSE]

i need to get one of those cameras. how do they get the camera to move in for the closeup of the hiss? i wish my deer tracker did that.