The tourist in Maharashtra Tadoba National Park captured a clash between a tiger and sloth bear. The video taken on Wednesday during Safari shows the encounter between two fierce animals.
The video begins with the tiger chasing away the bear but suddenly, the sloth bear charges at the tiger. A battle ensues and tiger takes the lead, but face severe resistance. The next few tense minutes see both the tiger and the sloth bear viciously charge at each other trying to assert their dominance.
Akshay Kumar, the chief naturalist at Bamboo Forest Safari Lodge, tells NDTV that the tiger is 7-year-old Matkasur. Tiger is a male who has marked the water body called Jamun Bodi as his territory, and sloth bear, a female tried to get some water for her cub and herself which started the conflict.
The mother bear, in order to protect her cub, fought back. The distressed cub roared as its mother took on the big cat. Sloth bear fought her the life of her cub and that's what moms do.
"The tiger attacked the bear more than five minutes. It went after the sloth bear but she kept charging in order to protect her cub," Mr Kumar tells NDTV.
"It went on for 15 minutes. The tiger was roaring. It was a severe fight."
Both the tiger and sloth bear suffered injuries in the attack. The young cub ran away during the fight.
Mr Kumar, who shot the video, was leading a safari with tourists when they spotted the face-off between the bear and tiger. The video went viral on social media.