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Living with the face-clawing sloth bear that scares tigers6 August 2025ShareSaveSophie HardachShareSaveGetty ImagesSloth bears are cores da blazethe world's deadliest bear. As their habitat shrinks, India's forest communities are finding ways to co-exist with them.For the tiger, it must have felt like easy prey: a female sloth bear and her cub, walking away from a watering hole near a safari lodge in India. The tiger stalks the bear through dry scrub, preparing to attack. That's when things take a surprising turn.Instead of freezing or trying to escape, the sloth bear whips around, and charges at the startled-looking tiger. The tiger rears and fights back, and a 45-minute-long battle ensues, with the two biting and clawing at each other. Watch the video below to see their ferocious fight. Sloth bears (named due to their long claws and teeth, supposedly resembling a sloth) which live in India, Nepal and Sri Lanka, are widely considered among the most aggressive animals on the Indian subcontinent. They are known to charge explosively at anyone they consider a threat – not just tigers, but also, humans. One study counting large carnivore attacks on humans around the world between 1950 and 2019 found that sloth bear attacks outnumbered all other species, including tigers, lions, wolves and any other bears. There had been 1,337 sloth bear attacks on humans during that period, compared to 1,047 by tigers, 414 by wolves, and only 23 by polar bears, for example. (Though tiger, lion and other big cat attacks on humans are deadlier – around 65% of them are fatal to humans, whereas around 8% of sloth bear attacks are lethal).However, sloth bears are also facing many threats themselves, from habitat degradation to retaliation by humans. Their population is declining, and they have been classed as a vulnerable species, with their global population estimated at fewer than 20,000. That's not only a problem for the bears themselves – sloth bears have important benefits as ecosystem engineers who disperse fruit seeds and control termite populations. But research suggests that insights into the sloth bears' behaviour, including how they react to perceived threats, could help keep both humans and sloth bears safer.0:40WATCH: A sloth bear fights a tigerExplosive fighting skillsThe ferocity of sloth bears may be surprising given that the bears feed on fruit, termites and ants, and don't prey on mammals. But sloth bears may in fact have evolved their explosive strategy to survive among carnivores such as tigers, according to a 2024 study. "Explosively charging and attacking a potential threat has served sloth bears well for hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of years," according to the study's authors. Their analysis of 43 encounters between sloth bears and tigers suggests that the scare tactics work: the clashes mostly ended with both sides backing off and the tiger running away largely unharmed. In the fight near the safari lodge, the female sloth bear and the male tiger also turned out to be quite evenly matched opponents, according to the naturalist who observed them."Tigers are very powerful, but their stamina might not last. And sloth bears are extremely hairy, so the tiger did not get proper grip on the throat of the sloth bear," says Akshay Kumar, the chief naturalist and manager of Bamboo Forest Safari Lodge in Tadoba National Park in Maharashtra state in India, who filmed the encounter.By the end, the male tiger was completely tired out, Kumar says: "He came and sat in the water body, for a couple of hours, just exhausted." The sloth bear wandered away. Kumar spotted both the sloth bear and the tiger separately over the following days. "They looked fine," he says.For humans, however, the outcome of such a clash can be far worse. Firstly, unlike tigers, humans are not fast enough to outrun sloth bears. Also, the attacks themselves can be especially damaging to humans as the bears mostly attack the head, and their sharp, long claws can rip off people's faces and gouge out their eyes. "There are a lot of issues around human and sloth bear conflicts, and most of those conflicts are about sloth bears attacking humans," says Nishith Dharaiya, director of the Centre for Wildlife Research at BKNM University in Junagadh, India, and an expert in human-sloth bear conflict. People may retaliate by killing sloth bears, Dharaiya says.Encounters between sloth bears and humans are increasing, intensified by habitat loss and degradation. But according to Dharaiya, those clashes are avoidable, based on insights into how, why and when sloth bears attack.Getty ImagesSloth bears face many threats, including habitat degradation and retaliation by humans (Credit: Getty Images)A misunderstood bear? One of Dharaiya's key arguments is that sloth bears are actually not necessarily inherently aggressive, or intending to kill. Rather, he describes their deadliness to humans as a somewhat unintended consequence of a defence strategy that's mainly meant to scare the enemy off, for example, when a female bear carrying cubs feels threatened. "Whether it's a tiger, lion, leopard, human, the sloth bear initially tries to show itself as bigger than the other animal," he explains. "It stands on its hind legs, and then attacks with its forelegs," equipped with long claws, which help them dig for ants as part of their usual feeding habit.Sloth bears are actually not more aggressive than other bears, but the way they attack is more deadly – Nishith DharaiyaIn fights with tigers, standing may give the bears an important advantage. In the study analysing videos of bear-tiger battles, almost all sloth bears stood up when the tiger was at close range, and the one sloth bear that did not stand was immediately killed. By contrast, none of the tigers were seriously injured or killed in any of the encounters, probably helped by the fact that they are faster than sloth bears and can just sprint away. For humans, however, outrunning a sloth bear is usually not an option – not only are humans much slower than tigers, but reports from survivors of attacks suggest that the bears may rush at humans seemingly out of nowhere, before even being noticed. If the standing bear then swats at the person, their forelegs and claws make contact with the human face – our most vulnerable body part, Dharaiya points out."That's why sloth bear attacks are deadly, and why sloth bears are known as aggressive bears within the bear family," he says. "[They are] actually not more aggressive [than other bears], but the way they attack is more deadly."The result can be catastrophic, life-changing injuries. In 2020, a 50-year-old man in Sri Lanka was foraging for tamarind in a forest when he was attacked by a sloth bear whose claws ripped his face off. In a similar case in 2023, a 43-year-old herdsman tending his cattle in Sri Lanka also had his face mauled by a sloth bear. Both men lost their eyesight. In Odisha in eastern India, a man was mauled so badly by a sloth bear that brain matter bulged out of his injured skull – emergency surgery managed to save his life, according to a 2017 report. The attacks are so explosive that survivors recount not having had any time to react. In the words of a survivor of another attack: "It happened so fast, I didn't see the bear coming… just dust, flying leaves, and the screams and roars of the bear."In the areas of India Dharaiya and his team study, such as central Gujarat, tribal communities are especially at risk of such unintended clashes. "Most of them are forest dwellers. They visit the jungle to collect firewood, timber, fruits and honey, medicinal plants," Dharaiya says. "That's when they come across the bears", which feed on the same plants and honey, he explains.Nishith DharaiyaA local tribesman carries a "ghanti khati" bell stick to deter sloth bears in India (Credit: Nishith Dharaiya)In particular, the villagers collect the flowers of the madhuca indica tree, which they use to make a traditional wine called mahua. "They have to collect this flower of the tree in the early morning, when the sloth bear is also looking for food," he says. "And the same flower, of the same tree, is also the food of sloth bear, so it visits the same area. And because it's early in the morning, and there's less visibility, there's a chance of confrontation." In one survey of these communities in central Gujarat, most respondents said sloth bears posed a significant risk to human life, and support for the bears' conservation was low among them. Dharaiya and his colleagues at the WCB Research Foundation are hoping to change those attitudes. They analyse the attacks and interview survivors to understand the causes, then use the insights to help locals avoid the bears. The measures include educating locals in bear safety, such as making noise when walking to reduce the chances of sudden encounters with bears. The experts also recommend clearing thick bushes and shrubs from field edges and roadsides, to make it easier for bears and humans to spot and avoid each other, and building toilets close to settlements so people don't need to venture into the forest alone as much. In addition, the researchers have designed a special anti-sloth-bear stick, equipped with bells and blunt spikes.With the bell stick, the sloth bear will be safe, and the person will be safe – Nishith DharaiyaCalled "ghanti kathi" in Hindi (meaning "bell stick"), the stick's main purpose is to scare off sloth bears and prevent clashes, says Dharaiya. He and his team have distributed 500 of these sticks to tribal communities and forest department staff who patrol the local forests where sloth bears live, he says.Nishith DharaiyaTribal communities in India are learning to live alongside the sloth bear (Credit: Nishith Dharaiya)"When people use the stick, the bells make a noise that alerts the sloth bear, or any other wild animals," he says. "And even in the worst case, if the sloth bear comes close to a person, the person can deter the animal with the blunt-ended spikes. So the sloth bear will be safe, and the person will be safe." While an official evaluation is still under way, Dharaiya says the response so far has been very positive, and that preliminary data suggests it works."People are saying it helps – not only with the sloth bear but also with other wild animals," including wild boars and leopards, he says, as the noise of the stick scares them away. Dharaiya hopes that as people learn more about the sloth bear, and how to live more safely with it, they will come to see it as an animal worth protecting. In fact, forest field staff surveyed about the sloth bear viewed the animal more positively, compared to ordinary villagers."The sloth bear is [endemic to] the Indian subcontinent. So it's our responsibility to conserve it," he says. "Sloth bears are the engineers of the forest, they control ant and termite populations, they disperse seeds, they help the fertility of the soil. They're a very important animal in the ecosystem."--For essential climate news and hopeful developments to your inbox, sign up to the Future Earth newsletter, while The Essential List delivers a handpicked selection of features and insights twice a week.For more science, technology, environment and health stories from the BBC, follow us on Facebook and Instagram.EarthFuture PlanetAnimalWildlifeEnvironmentConservationClimate solutionsFeatures
