LARGE ANIMAL ATTACKS - Medicine for Mountaineering and Other Wilderness Activities - page 472

Bears are among the most widely distributed animals and are found on every continent
except Africa and Antarctica. The European and Asian brown bear is genetically the same
species as the American brown or grizzly bear. In Europe, the number of brown bears is
small,andtheseanimalshavecoexistedwithhumansmuchlonger.Theyhavebecomenoc-
turnal to avoid humans and are rarely seen. Human injury by these bears is extremely rare.
In the former Soviet Union brown bears live in vast, undeveloped areas and have main-
tained their aggressive tendencies toward humans. However, encounters are uncommon.
Human injuries from bear attacks may result from animals that have been wounded by
hunters.
Pandas are vegetarians, and their diet consists almost entirely of stalks, leaves, and
shoots of only two bamboo species. Because the nutrient content of this material is so
small, pandas spend as much as twelve hours a day eating. These animals are shy and re-
clusive and are a minimal threat to humans in the wild.
Spectacled bears live in the tropical Andes Mountains in northwest South America.
They spend most of their time in trees eating fruit. The bears are small and shy, human en-
counters are rare, and they pose very little threat to humans.
Sloth bears live in subtropical forests of Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, and Sri
Lanka. Their diet consists largely of ants and termites. After Russian brown bears, sloth
bears appear to be the most dangerous bear species in Europe and Asia. Its aggression is
consideredintermediatebetweenAmericanblackbearsandgrizzlybears,butitisnotpred-
atory. An average of one person a year is killed in Nepal's Chitwan National Park, and one
individual in western Nepal is seriously injured approximately every other year.
Asiatic black bears live in broadleaf forests from Pakistan to China and Southeast Asia.
Small pockets of them live in other areas. These bears are omnivorous and good climbers.
They make approximately two attacks per year that produce injuries requiring hospitaliza-
tion on humans, mostly as a result of close encounters.
Sun bears live in Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia and are the smallest of all bear spe-
cies. Adults weigh approximately 100 pounds. They are proficient tree climbers, are rarely
seen, and present almost no threat to humans.
Tigers
Tigers are the largest of the big cats. They can reach thirteen feet in total length and
weigh as much as 660 pounds. A century ago, the world's tiger population was estimated
tobe100,000ormoreanimals,butthepopulationhasdwindledtobetween5000and7000.
According to some estimates the population is even lower, some 2500 or fewer mature
breeding individuals. Of the nine subspecies of modern tiger, three are extinct and the re-
maining six are endangered, some critically, primarily as the result of habitat destruction
due to enlarging human populations and poaching.