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As epic animal showdowns go, one between a bear and tiger has to be pretty high on the list.
Incredibly, in a video that has gone viral on Facebook, tourists in India were witness to a brutal fight between a male Bengal tiger and a mother sloth bear defending her cub, all of which was caught on camera.
The battle took place in Tadoba National Park, where tigers and bears live side by side and tend to steer clear of each other. This time, however, the tiger was having none of it. It seems that as the mother bear and her cub tried to make their way down to a watering hole, the male tiger aggressively chased the pair off, before the female sloth bear turns around and charges back at the big cat.
A ferocious fight ensued, in which at one point it looks like the large tiger gets the better of the bear, pinning it down to the ground. But the sloth bear manages to struggle free, and eventually turns the tables on the cranky cat, chasing him into the waterhole itself, before making her escape with the cub.
The incredible footage was filmed by Akshay Kumar, Chief Naturalist at The Bamboo Forest Safari Lodge in Maharashtra, during one of their regular safaris into Tadoba.
It seems that perhaps the fight between Shere Khan and Baloo is not so farfetched after all, and you should never ever anger a mama bear.
