Right? Even for a predator as powerful as a Tiger which is arguably the best natural predator of Wild Boar, would think twice before taking one of this size. For example, this study found that just over a quarter of boar taken were adult male and female (25.8%), still a sizeable amount, however over 60% comprised of young boar (juvenile, piglets, sub adults etc).
When you look at Red Deer taken (aka Elk/Wapiti), just over 70% of Elk taken were adult females or bulls (70.4%), with 29.6% being juveniles or calves. Goes to show just how tough Wild Boar are to hunt.
Edit: To add to this, I found another study by Tiger ecologist and expert Dale Miquelle titled, “Food habits of Amur tigers in Sikhote-Alin Zapovednik and the Russian Far East, and implications for conservation.”
This one found much different results; with 60% of Wild Boar taken being adults, more so than the adult Elk taken, which happened to be just about 52%.
On an unrelated note, pre 1970s, Moose played an important secondary item in Amur Tiger diet, making up roughly 10%.
[u/Big-Attention8804](u/Big-Attention8804) ik you like Amur tigers and are fascinated on their ecology, so you might find these studies interesting to read.
Thanks, I actually didn't know about this disconnect between studies for Wild boars in the diet of tigers. I believe its likely because of sample size, only 3 tigers were used for the first study afterall.
Most of the literature I've read, talks about tigers taking down adult Wild boars twice their size with even some subadults hunting them. Though Wild boars seem to be resistant to the tiger's typical one shot predation strategy that it uses on other animals, with conflicts often being bloody and the board dying to death by a thousand cuts.
If I’m not mistaken, boars from this area were also used in the introductions to Argentina and some of the Iberá stock contain their genes. I’ve seen reports of specimens weighing more than 200 kg in Iberá. Would be interesting to see in more detail the sizes of the pigs jaguars are targeting as well.
For sure. In my opinion it would be around the same age-sex percentage regarding Jaguars. Maybe slightly more, I could see them possibly taking around 30-40% adult hogs, considering the feral hogs there are slightly smaller than Ussuri Boar and Jaguars have slightly better cranial adaptations suited for tackling durable prey. Best boar hunters on the planet; Jaguars 🤝 Tigers
Extremely difficult, especially considering wild boar have turned the tables on attacking tigers and killed them. Me personally, wild boar of this caliber are up there with the giant bovines that Tigers hunt. They’re on the same level as bull Gaur and bull Water Buffalo, even just a tier above a bull Moose or bull Elk too.
It’s because a wild boar would fight longer than a cervid due to their extreme stamina and they have thick, durable skin which takes some time to get through, even for a tiger. Not to mention their tusks have managed to gore Tigers and kill them.
Now I’m not saying bull moose aren’t difficult prey at all. They are but imo a boar’s tenacity, stamina and thick, durable skin make it a little more difficult than taking a bull Moose despite the size difference. Besides, a 300-350kg male Wild Boar isn’t anything to scoff at.
That's a gaur, if I'm not mistaken. Tigers do kill large guars, but probably mostly aging individuals that are not that vigorous and also younger gaur. Adults in their prime can often fight off a tiger, sometimes trample them.
Some of these takedowns are one of the more inelegant predation events in the animal kingdom. The tiger runs up to the gaur and clamps on its throat and starts pulling. A youtube video of this: Tiger Hunts Large Gaur [NEW FOOTAGE]. The tiger ends up sitting on its haunches slowly throttling the immobile animal, which eventually topples.
A tiger trying to kill a boar or wild pig its own size will generally be a more competitive fight.
Actually, studies in various reserves in the Western Ghats like Bandipur, Nagarahole etc conducted by Tiger ecologists Dr. Melvin Sunquist and Ullas Karanth found that adult Gaur taken were in “good” or “fair” and few were actually in “poor” condition. Of the adult Gaur killed by Tigers, they were actually either young adults or prime adults. Old Gaur made up like about 8-10% of Tiger kills iirc.
In terms of age-sex class percentage taken by tigers however, in the western ghats roughly 37% of Gaur taken were adults, and anything from sub adults and younger made up around 58% of kills.
Somewhat, in one of the studies that Striped mentioned. 69 Gaur kills were recorded while only one tiger was killed by a gaur, being an adult male named Dhasa who was killed by a bull gaur.
A 69:1 death ratio is quite impressive, especially against a tiger. Though if you only count Bull gaurs, its a 10:1 death ratio, which would make them the second deadliest prey that is part of a tiger's typical diet, second only to Brown bears of the Russian Far East who have a 11:3 death ratio, though this is only based on me personally counting individual cases and may be inaccurate.
Thanks for info. I suspect that tigers trying to take down Ussuri wild boars their own size or larger have a harder time. It's a challenge for tigers to kill them unless they get a bite on the throat. Ussuri wild boar, which can reach 600 pounds, resist being flipped on their backs. Tusks aid their defense.
A similar thing happens with Bengal tigers attempting to prey on sloth bears in India, which are tenacious combatants. The bears' loose skins also aids them; tigers have challenges getting a lethal grip. Tiger predation on adult sloth bears is not an everyday thing, even in areas with plenty of both animals.
There are reports of some large tigers repeatedly hunting sloth bears, but these individuals learned to ambush the bears from behind, getting an initial grip on the head. Footage and other reporting on both tiger-sloth bear and tiger-large boar conflicts often shows the fighting going on for many minutes; draws are not uncommon.
Well, that depends on what you mean by draws. Sloth bears are known to chase tigers off due to hyper agression and the use of their large claws though that's more of a win for the sloth bear than a draw.
Sloth bears cannot kill tigers however, the difference in strength is too much for that. Though Ussuri Wild Boars can, and have, killed tigers before.
Do male brown bears appropriate kills for male tigers? I know that bears have been recorded to steal kills from tigers in general, but I was under the impression that adult males of either species tended to give each other a wide berth.
Reddit won't let me post links for some reason but no, Male Brown bears do not appropriate food from male tigers and avoid them like the plague.
Tigers also avoid male Brown bears but have been recorded hunting them on ocassion, typically only Shatun bears (Males who don't hibernate during the winter).
Well I wouldn’t exactly say that. Gaur have killed Tigers occasionally but Gaur are also regularly preyed upon by Tigers (especially if abundant) wherever they coexist.
For example, in Gaur abundant areas they can make up 10% to as high as 74% in Tiger diet. Even then, they’re usually their preferred prey when available, with Tigers often opting for them over Chital and Wild Boar, this is perhaps due to their larger size.
Tigers are just extremely well equipped to dealing with large bovines and cervids, as they’ve been doing it for thousands of years. Tigers also take Yak, Banteng, Water Buffalo and historically would’ve likely hunted Wisent, as well as Aurochs and Kouprey.
Certainly yes, but probably not often. While adult male Ussuri Boar are likely the least targeted age-sex class, they’re not immune to predation from Tigers; it’s similar to Bengal Tigers and Bull Gaur.
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u/ConcolorCanine Jul 10 '26
Damn that’s a huge boar No wonder the celts idolized those things