Zookeeper's Lounge

does anyne here watch animal face off on discovery channel? i like the show its interesting to see a scientific view on what animla would win in a fight in the wild.

In college I study animal behavior and behavior ecology. I haven't seen a whole show but from the bits and pieces I have seen it looks like they assess the animal's physical strengths and hunting strategies to build a robotic model to determine a winner. The bottom line from a ethological point of view is this: There are so many factors, known and unknown, and so many intangibles that no one can acurrately predict an outcome between 2 animals of the same species let alone two animals of a different species. The other problem I have with the show is they assume one-on-one matches. I saw parts of a cougar vs wolf match. Now, one-on-one a cougar would decimate the wolf but in REAL LIFE wolves are pack hunters, cougars are solitary predators and a pack of wolves will spook any cougar into running towards the hills. I like the premise of the show but there is no way to predict an outcome of an encounter between 2 individuals, especially between individuals of different species. There is too much variation within individuals and within species to predict accurately the outcome of any encounter. Remember, we can never recreate nature in a lab.

Have they done Siberian Tiger vs some form of bear? Thta's a confrontation that can and does happen in the wild, and the outcome of such incidents seems to be 50/50. Either one can win, it just depends on the relative size, intelligence and experience of each animal. I have also heard of Cougars defending their cubs from black bears in the wild, again with mixed results.

When young are threatened just about any animal will try to defend it regardless of the odds, risk of life. An animal has 2 big goals. Its own survival and the survival of its species. Any parent will naturally try to protect their offspring and the P.I.(parental investment) which they have put in.

I didn't actually know that is was on but it sounds interesting. I wouldn't mind seeing it some time

I wonder if they would ever do a 3 way fight against 3 animals that could meet like a shark vs. Hippo vs. Crocodile.

there are so many factors that could determine the outcome of the battles in some like lion vs. tiger it would be so close because of how alike lions and tigers are and unlike on the show lions would hardly ever be alone to fight a tiger 1 on 1 and they only do one test im sure ifthey retried the scenario over and over the results of lone lion vs. tiger would be about 50/50

I don't know what that is, but, like Raindragon, I do think it sounds interesting. I don't really like the idea of a show about animals fighting, though. Even if they are robots...

Siberian Tiger versus Grizzly Bear is this coming Sunday!

I saw Polar Bear versus Walrus last week (and cougar versus wolf prior to that)
lots of carnage and decent virtual battles

it does have lots of interesting facts about each animal; interesting concept. I like it and will continue to watch

could you tell who won because I can't watch this show in Belgium
( one of the disavantages of being a tiny country ( the size of Maryland))

here are SPOILERS for the ones i have seen:

turn back now...

don't read this if you don't want to know:

highlight these to read the victor...

Polar Bear versus Walrus: Walrus
Cougar versus Wolf: Cougar
Brown Bear versus Siberian Tiger: Brown Bear

um did you mean for the answers to be visible without highlighting them?
oh well do they have somethin against tigers the tigers always lose im sure a tiger could kill a lion part of the time

Possibly jwa is using a skin with a white background, while we are using a skin that uses a different color background. Those Admins ... They mean well, but sometimes they don't think things through. Lack of sleep can do that. But I don't think there was a way to do it for all skins.

im using the Invision PowerBoard skin

and the battles are not 100% definitive
most often they run the sequences 10 times and if you get 6 or more wins, you are the overall winner...

so the brown bear could have won all ten times or just 6 times and been declared the winner...

Animal-face off?
Does that mean you cut off the face of innocent animals?
YOU SICK SADISTS!