Sloth Bear Climbing for Honey

[Sucheth Lingachar]

Photographed at Kabini, This was my first Sloth bear sighting and i never thought sloth bear can climb that much tall and big tree for Honey.

Actually we were searching for Leopard in that area and found foot mark of sloth bear on the road, we followed the foot mark for 200 meters, all of a sudden our guide shouted bear.. bear.. then after hearing our vehicle sound it came down so fast and disappeared in the bush.

Nikon D7100, Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 300mm f/4D IF-ED + AF-S Teleconverter TC-14E II/14E

F/7.1, 1/320s, ISO 1000

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

Superb image of the sloth bear hugging the rough bark and its momentary second thought - whether or not to climb up further.
Is this a trunk of a Terminalia whose bark is so reminiscent of crocodile skin, as Krishnan has written (Country Notebook; 14 June 2015). Thanks for sharing. SaktiWild

[Shyamala Kumar]

Lovely sighting and capture of a shy wily animal.I have still to properly photograph one in the wild.Thanks for sharing.

[Mrudul Godbole]

Very rare sighting of a sloth bear climbing a tree. Good eye contact. Vertical composition looks nice. Nicely captured. Thanks for sharing.

[Roopak Gangadharan]

Super sighting and a nice image Sucheth...i have never seen a sloth bear up a tree. any wider compositions??
TFS
Roopak

[Sucheth Lingachar]

Thank you Sakti Ji, Shyamala Kumar, Mrudul and Roopak for valuable comments and appreciation.

Roopak: No wider composition, tree was close to the safari track and got only few seconds to take our shots, as it saw our vehicle and suddenly came down in few seconds.

[Murugan Anantharaman]

Nice moment captured Sucheth. I have never seen a bear on a tree. Thanks for sharing.

[Vipin Sharma]

Lovely image , TFS

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Nice to see a sloth bear up a tree. It is good that you got eye contact. Wish you had got the hind legs as well.

It can climb down pretty fast. Many years ago I had observed one sloth bear climbing up a tree in Ranthambhore. However, when we moved closer, it took about 3 seconds to climb down. I was handholding my camera at that time and before I could steady myself and pull the trigger, it was gone.

The best observations about sloth bears - as far as my knowledge goes - have been made by Dunbar Brander in his book Wild Animals in Central India http://www.indiawilds.com/diary/wild-animals-in-central-india/ . In that book, I remember Dunbar Brander mentioning that when a hunter approaches a sloth bear, the sloth bear climbs down pretty fast while keeping the tree between itself and the hunter. Infact, he gives pride of place to the Sloth bear as the opening chapter. In page 8 Dunbar Brander writes "When the bear is treed in this way or even found up a tree in teh day-time, the sportsman may imagine he has an easy task in hand, but this is not so, and the bear should be approached with the utmost caution. on realizing his danger, he slips behind the main trunk, and rapidly descending without exposing his person beyond one hurried glance round the edge of the stem, he will drop the last 15 feet and make off at a gallop, keeping the trunk of the tree between himself and his enemy."