There is no contest. The bear would kill the lion with a couple of blows to the head, or simply rip it apart.
[quote]Goodfellow wrote:
Look at the size difference. Look at the thickness of the polar bears legs and the size of it’s claws compared to the lion. Not to mention the thickness of its fur/skin provides protection against the claws of the lion.
There is no contest. The bear would kill the lion with a couple of blows to the head, or simply rip it apart. [/quote]
Polar bears’ claws can’t even break the skin of a walrus. They would have to grab ahold of the lion with its jaws and crush it to win.
Have you ever seen two pitbulls go at it? It’s usually the shorter one that wins because it has an easier time getting at the other dog’s throat. The worst-case scenario for the lion would be to end up underneath the polar bear on its back, where it can still get to the jugular or use its hind legs to eviscerate the bear. Best-case scenario it uses its FAR superior speed and agility to get on the bear’s back, and then it’s all over for the bear.
[quote]clip11 wrote:
I had a german shepherd, and no doubt, when he was in his prime and if he just went wild and berserk, would easily kill an unarmed man. [/quote]
Not if the unarmed man was in his prime wild and berserk. At least on concrete a dogs neck would not be too difficult to snap nor crashing his head on the concrete. Humans are just as conditioned to not kill and not handle surprises. The guy would have to take a nice bite though. Which isn’t all that difficult when addrenaline is pumping.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
[quote]Goodfellow wrote:
Look at the size difference. Look at the thickness of the polar bears legs and the size of it’s claws compared to the lion. Not to mention the thickness of its fur/skin provides protection against the claws of the lion.
There is no contest. The bear would kill the lion with a couple of blows to the head, or simply rip it apart. [/quote]
Polar bears’ claws can’t even break the skin of a walrus. They would have to grab ahold of the lion with its jaws and crush it to win.
Have you ever seen two pitbulls go at it? It’s usually the shorter one that wins because it has an easier time getting at the other dog’s throat. The worst-case scenario for the lion would be to end up underneath the polar bear on its back, where it can still get to the jugular or use its hind legs to eviscerate the bear. Best-case scenario it uses its FAR superior speed and agility to get on the bear’s back, and then it’s all over for the bear.[/quote]
Walrus skin is 4" thick. One of a bears best weapons are it’s forelegs. Grizzly’s have been known to break a steer’s neck with one swipe.
On top of that for their size polar bears are very athletic, they just don’t posses cat like speed. Really all the bear would have to do is lay on it and the lion wouldn’t be scratching at anything. They way they get on another animals back is either through diversion from the rest of the pack or because the prey is running away. Polar Bear don’t run, Polar Bear don’t give a shit. Lion, it’s what’s for dinner.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
The polar bear is larger, but it’s claws are blunt…
[/quote]
Bertie, thou art full of poo poo.[/quote]
It’s kind of like coming after me for saying that a 30 kiloton nuclear bomb has a small blast radius and then you show me a picture of about 7 square miles of destruction and lambast me for saying that that is small. Yeah, sure, a blast radius of 1.5 miles is not small at all, but when compared to a 100 kiloton bomb it is tiny. So it’s a small blast radius when compared to other nuclear bombs but it is not small in and of itself.[/quote]
Oh good grief.
Next thing we know you’ll be defending male polar bear cubs who want to wear pink tutu’s to their African lion self defense classes on Tuesdays on ice floe #6709 just south of the 89th parallel.
We’ll get some long, convoluted diatribe about bear cubs in general being mere dictates of their marine environment and their parent’s obsession with seals. On and on and on you’ll go, page after page - a bandwidth sucking Godzilla - mercilessly pounding the TN reader with notions that the wearing of tutus might very well be the Get Out of Jail Free card for the cub who wants to live his life feasting on plankton instead of the stodgy old whale, seal and fish cuisine that prevails in conventional polar bear culture; a culture, mind you, that is steeped in ignorance of other bear cultures, say for instance the spotted Rwandan bear (rare but still thriving somewhat deep in the Congo) which has survived on the leaves and bark of the mahogany tree for millenia.
Like I said, good grief, Bert.[/quote]
Sophistry and hand-waving is all you’re good for in some of these arguments, Push. Sort of like “Look over there, look over there, because I don’t want anyone to see what’s going on right here.”
I like you Push, but the fact that you spent half the gun thread ridiculing people for having the audacity to want to do something in the wake of 20+ innocent people getting killed is absolutely disgusting to me. Forget the actual veracity of anyone’s arguments over there, that’s immaterial to my point. The fact that you ridiculed people for essentially having a reaction at all and wanting to seek some sort of solution to something that horrific has made anything you have to say to me in the form of an argument totally irrelevant in my mind.
Good day, Merry Christmas and may God bless you.
The other thing you guys are forgetting about is the metabolism of a polar bear. If the lion can last for more than a couple minutes or force the bear to exert himself pretty intensely at the outset of the fight, the polar bear is done for. They overheat fairly easily, certainly WELL before a lion or tiger would, and then they’d be practically defenseless.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
The polar bear is larger, but it’s claws are blunt…
[/quote]
Bertie, thou art full of poo poo.[/quote]
It’s kind of like coming after me for saying that a 30 kiloton nuclear bomb has a small blast radius and then you show me a picture of about 7 square miles of destruction and lambast me for saying that that is small. Yeah, sure, a blast radius of 1.5 miles is not small at all, but when compared to a 100 kiloton bomb it is tiny. So it’s a small blast radius when compared to other nuclear bombs but it is not small in and of itself.[/quote]
Oh good grief.
Next thing we know you’ll be defending male polar bear cubs who want to wear pink tutu’s to their African lion self defense classes on Tuesdays on ice floe #6709 just south of the 89th parallel.
We’ll get some long, convoluted diatribe about bear cubs in general being mere dictates of their marine environment and their parent’s obsession with seals. On and on and on you’ll go, page after page - a bandwidth sucking Godzilla - mercilessly pounding the TN reader with notions that the wearing of tutus might very well be the Get Out of Jail Free card for the cub who wants to live his life feasting on plankton instead of the stodgy old whale, seal and fish cuisine that prevails in conventional polar bear culture; a culture, mind you, that is steeped in ignorance of other bear cultures, say for instance the spotted Rwandan bear (rare but still thriving somewhat deep in the Congo) which has survived on the leaves and bark of the mahogany tree for millenia.
Like I said, good grief, Bert.[/quote]
Sophistry and hand-waving is all you’re good for in some of these arguments, Push. Sort of like “Look over there, look over there, because I don’t want anyone to see what’s going on right here.”
I like you Push, but the fact that you spent half the gun thread ridiculing people for having the audacity to want to do something in the wake of 20+ innocent people getting killed is absolutely disgusting to me. Forget the actual veracity of anyone’s arguments over there, that’s immaterial to my point. The fact that you ridiculed people for essentially having a reaction at all and wanting to seek some sort of solution to something that horrific has made anything you have to say to me in the form of an argument totally irrelevant in my mind.
Good day, Merry Christmas and may God bless you.[/quote]
The self-made weak and the purposely timid, the ones who look to government as a “solution” provider, those who would sacrifice essential liberty for a perception of temporary safety, deserve ridicule. At the very least they deserve some education on the subject of which they are so direly lacking, Chief Blunt Claw.[/quote]
TLDNR
“I’m sorry to say that bears and lions have been pitted against one another on many, many occasions, always for human ‘sport’. When brown/grizzly bears are involved, they always win hands-down: in fact, in historical pitted fights fought in Canada, lions were reputed to last less than 5 mins against adult bears. Even small bears like sloth bears can hold their own against adult lions, with the lion coming off much worse.”
Found this quote from a biologist after a little googling.
DBCooper do you ever help so much that you derp? 
[quote]csulli wrote:
“I’m sorry to say that bears and lions have been pitted against one another on many, many occasions, always for human ‘sport’. When brown/grizzly bears are involved, they always win hands-down: in fact, in historical pitted fights fought in Canada, lions were reputed to last less than 5 mins against adult bears. Even small bears like sloth bears can hold their own against adult lions, with the lion coming off much worse.”
Found this quote from a biologist after a little googling.
DBCooper do you ever help so much that you derp? :P[/quote]
An alleged biologist on an Internet forum? With no citation to back up his assertions? Give me a break.
Pitting a lion against a bear in Canada poses a serious disadvantage to the lion since he is fighting in temperatures that could be as much 100 degrees less than his natural climate. And this is assuming that the alleged biologist isn’t completely full of shit to begin with.
Also, this says nothing about polar bears, who have a tendency to overheat even in their own environment while running long distances. The fact is that if the polar bear and the lion were to fight in a “neutral” climate, say temps in the mid-40’s or 50’s, both animals would be hampered but the polar bear would probably be at a much larger disadvantage since they can overheat even in hospitable climates.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
[quote]csulli wrote:
“I’m sorry to say that bears and lions have been pitted against one another on many, many occasions, always for human ‘sport’. When brown/grizzly bears are involved, they always win hands-down: in fact, in historical pitted fights fought in Canada, lions were reputed to last less than 5 mins against adult bears. Even small bears like sloth bears can hold their own against adult lions, with the lion coming off much worse.”
Found this quote from a biologist after a little googling.
DBCooper do you ever help so much that you derp? :P[/quote]
An alleged biologist on an Internet forum? With no citation to back up his assertions? Give me a break.
Pitting a lion against a bear in Canada poses a serious disadvantage to the lion since he is fighting in temperatures that could be as much 100 degrees less than his natural climate. And this is assuming that the alleged biologist isn’t completely full of shit to begin with.
Also, this says nothing about polar bears, who have a tendency to overheat even in their own environment while running long distances. The fact is that if the polar bear and the lion were to fight in a “neutral” climate, say temps in the mid-40’s or 50’s, both animals would be hampered but the polar bear would probably be at a much larger disadvantage since they can overheat even in hospitable climates.[/quote]
Nobody agrees with you. It seems like common sense to us.
[quote]csulli wrote:
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
[quote]csulli wrote:
“I’m sorry to say that bears and lions have been pitted against one another on many, many occasions, always for human ‘sport’. When brown/grizzly bears are involved, they always win hands-down: in fact, in historical pitted fights fought in Canada, lions were reputed to last less than 5 mins against adult bears. Even small bears like sloth bears can hold their own against adult lions, with the lion coming off much worse.”
Found this quote from a biologist after a little googling.
DBCooper do you ever help so much that you derp? :P[/quote]
An alleged biologist on an Internet forum? With no citation to back up his assertions? Give me a break.
Pitting a lion against a bear in Canada poses a serious disadvantage to the lion since he is fighting in temperatures that could be as much 100 degrees less than his natural climate. And this is assuming that the alleged biologist isn’t completely full of shit to begin with.
Also, this says nothing about polar bears, who have a tendency to overheat even in their own environment while running long distances. The fact is that if the polar bear and the lion were to fight in a “neutral” climate, say temps in the mid-40’s or 50’s, both animals would be hampered but the polar bear would probably be at a much larger disadvantage since they can overheat even in hospitable climates.[/quote]
Nobody agrees with you. It seems like common sense to us.[/quote]
At one point in time no one agreed with Gallileo either. Are you trying to say that the polar bear’s metabolism is a non-issue if they were placed n a theoretical neutral environment?
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
[quote]csulli wrote:
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
[quote]csulli wrote:
“I’m sorry to say that bears and lions have been pitted against one another on many, many occasions, always for human ‘sport’. When brown/grizzly bears are involved, they always win hands-down: in fact, in historical pitted fights fought in Canada, lions were reputed to last less than 5 mins against adult bears. Even small bears like sloth bears can hold their own against adult lions, with the lion coming off much worse.”
Found this quote from a biologist after a little googling.
DBCooper do you ever help so much that you derp? :P[/quote]
An alleged biologist on an Internet forum? With no citation to back up his assertions? Give me a break.
Pitting a lion against a bear in Canada poses a serious disadvantage to the lion since he is fighting in temperatures that could be as much 100 degrees less than his natural climate. And this is assuming that the alleged biologist isn’t completely full of shit to begin with.
Also, this says nothing about polar bears, who have a tendency to overheat even in their own environment while running long distances. The fact is that if the polar bear and the lion were to fight in a “neutral” climate, say temps in the mid-40’s or 50’s, both animals would be hampered but the polar bear would probably be at a much larger disadvantage since they can overheat even in hospitable climates.[/quote]
Nobody agrees with you. It seems like common sense to us.[/quote]
At one point in time no one agreed with Gallileo either. Are you trying to say that the polar bear’s metabolism is a non-issue if they were placed n a theoretical neutral environment?[/quote]
You strike me as a pretty bright guy overall, but Galileo is a bit of a stretch.
So, just to clarify, in lion vs. brown/grizzly bear you are willing to consider the “alleged biologist’s” assertion that the bear has and will win, but only because the lion was too cold to fight well?
Given the likely duration of such a confrontation, I really don’t think relative temperature would be much of a factor. “The guy was 3x my size” is a much bigger problem than “I was too cold.”
This isn’t going to be decided by which one overheats and gasses out first. This has nothing to do with “running long distances”. It’s about which one first inflicts sufficient trauma on the other that he becomes unwilling/unable to go on fighting.
I see this as a very fast, violent encounter that will very likely be decided in the opening seconds i.e. whichever one lands the first meaningful blow will take the fight. That said, I think the lion would have a very difficult time landing a blow that would really hurt the bear.
Other than the eyes, the bear’s thick, loose skin and fat layer would make it very difficult for the lion’s claws to penetrate anything important, regardless of how sharp they may be. His paws are incapable of generating sufficient concussive force to hurt the bear, given the mass difference. The lion’s bite is really only effective for strangulation, and that’s a non-starter against the bear as his airway is too well protected.
TL:DR
The Earth may orbit the Sun but the lion is screwed.
BTW, I think the lion is a better pound for pound fighter and if you eliminate the bear’s size advantage my answer changes. However in an “open class” event where each is in his species’ upper size/strength range and in his own prime… yep, the lion is screwed.
[quote]batman730 wrote:
BTW, I think the lion is a better pound for pound fighter and if you eliminate the bear’s size advantage my answer changes. However in an “open class” event where each is in his species’ upper size/strength range and in his own prime… yep, the lion is screwed.[/quote]
Well, are we talking pre- or post-hibernation? Because a polar bear coming out of hibernation is only about half its normal weight, although it might be more likely to fight if it thinks a tiger/lion represents a meal. Post-hibernation it definitely has a much bigger size advantage but it might be so engorged on seal blubber that it’s willingness to fight is severely diminished.
I fully concede that a grizzly would dominate a tiger/lion, but that isn’t the argument here.
I recently saw a video where a polar bear was feeding on a seal in a rare instance where they were feeding in the same environment that grizzlies lived in. The grizzly was considerably smaller and if I remember correctly, it was by itself whereas the polar bear was with a mate or a buddy or whatever. The polar got one whiff of that grizzly and took the fuck off. So I wonder about the aggressiveness of a polar bear. It was much larger than the grizzly but it put up no fight and left, while the grizzly ate the seal.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
I recently saw a video where a polar bear was feeding on a seal in a rare instance where they were feeding in the same environment that grizzlies lived in. The grizzly was considerably smaller and if I remember correctly, it was by itself whereas the polar bear was with a mate or a buddy or whatever. The polar got one whiff of that grizzly and took the fuck off. So I wonder about the aggressiveness of a polar bear. It was much larger than the grizzly but it put up no fight and left, while the grizzly ate the seal.[/quote]
I doubt this scenario tells us anything. Polar bears are solitary so if there were two together it means it was a mom with her cub. The cub may have been a couple of years old and very large but still a cub that the mother would protect from any encounter with a grizzly.
Never the less, years ago I pondered what would happen if a Grizzly and a Polar encountered each other in the wild. I concluded the Polar Bear would back down. My reasoning was that for survival, the Polar Bear needs to keep its coat in prime condition and couldn’t risk damage to it.
There is another factor too. Personalities of Grizzly Bears differ as much as humans. Some are afraid of their own shadow and others will attack in a heart beat.
