Expert: Jonathan Wright - 8/4/2008

Question
hello, how come you can't tel me average weights for the animals i mentioned?the grizzly bear, the polar bear, the brown bear as a whole, black bear,tiger, lion, leopard, jaguar, puma, snow leopard and hyena? even i found information about that, i just figured you can be more specific since you are an expert. and about the strenght of these animals, you don't have to answer, at least tel me the average weight, because when i think of interspecies conflict, i think too much of record weights, like 384 kg siberian tiger vs. 1200 kg kodiak bear. and so i would like to have average weights.
thanks and goodbye

Answer
Hallo Krisjan

Thanks for your questions. I also wish to thank the authors of the books and websites I used.

I get many questions at AllExperts and I have the option of choosing which ones I answer. Your question was a long list of animals and you wanted average weights for each. This information is available in many books and websites, although some of the figures differ and some give a range of weights, rather than one weight.

You then wanted to know the strength of each animal against a human. This is very subjective and, as far as I know, some of the animals have never been in a one-to-one fight against a human. Therefore, it would be a matter of guessing. As I joined AllExperts to give scientific answers, rather than spending a lot of time dealing with looking up easily accessible information for people (or guessing outcomes of fights), I decided to decline to answer your original question.

As your follow-up is shorter, I shall give you a couple of figures for each animal. Grzimek refers to Grzimek’s Encylopedia of Mammals. Macdonald refers to the Encyclopedia of Mammals, edited by David macdonald.  Walker refers to Walker’s Mammals of the World. I have not given separate figures for males and females. The average in parentheses have been determined as the midweight between the two extremes).  

Grizzly bear: http://animals.nationalgeographic.co.uk/animals/mammals/grizzly-bear.html gives 363 kg. http://www.greatbear.org/brownbear.htm gives 247 kg for a male and 157 kg for a female.
Polar bear: http://www.grizzlybeartours.co.uk/Polar%20Bear.html gives 450 kg. http://www.ket.org/Trips/zoo/polar.html gives 409 kg. Grzimek: 320-410 kg (average 365 kg); Macdonald: 200-600 kg (average 400 kg); Walker: 150-800 kg (average 475 kg)
Brown bear: Grzimek: 150-780 kg (average 465kg); Macdonald: 80-545 kg (average 312.5 kg)
American black bear: Grzimek: 120-150 kg (average 135 kg); Macdonald: 40-225 kg (average 132.5 kg); Walker: 92-270 kg (average 181 kg)
Lion: Grzimek: 120-250 kg (average 185 kg); Macdonald: 122-240 kg (181 kg); Walker: 120-250 kg (average: 185 kg).
Tiger: Grzimek: 115-280 kg (197.5 kg); Macdonald: 100-258 kg (average: 179 kg).
Jaguar: Grzimek: 30-150 kg (average 90 kg); Macdonald: 57-113 kg (average: 85 kg); Walker: 36-158 kg (average 97 kg).
Leopard: Grzimek: 30-80 kg (average 55 kg); Macdonald: 30-70 kg (average: 50 kg); Walker: 20-90 kg (average 55 kg).
Cougar: Grzimek: 30-100 kg (average 65 kg); Macdonald: 36-103 kg (average: 69.5 kg); Walker: 36-103 kg (average 69.5 kg)
Snow leopard: http://www.abf90.dial.pipex.com/bco/snowlep.htm gives 50 kg. http://www.geocities.com/Petsburgh/Haven/2061/L_faq.htm gives 55 kg. Grzimek: 35-70 kg (average under 50 kg); Macdonald: 35-55 kg (average: 45 kg); Walker: 25-75 kg (average 50 kg).
Spotted hyena: Grzimek: 40-65 kg (average 52.5 kg); Macdonald: 45-83 kg (average 64 kg); Walker: 40-86 kg (average 63 kg).

All the best

Jonathan