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This Bear Month, Backpacker is partnering with Tooth and Claw podcast to bring you the best bear science, safety, and storytelling on the web. Tune back in for exclusive video from the cast.
If you’re a typical American hiker, you may have seen black bears or even grizzlies on the trail, but you’ve likely never even heard of sloth bears. Inhabiting the forests and grasslands of the Indian subcontinent, these largely insectivorous creatures are slightly smaller on average than American black bears and much shaggier, with a long, manelike ruff of black and cream fur around their necks. But don’t get them confused with the sleepy, slow-moving mammals with a similar name: Sloth bears are well-known for their aggression. They’re arguably the most dangerous bears in the world, responsible for more fatal attacks on humans than any other species, and quicker to square off with a perceived threat than their more skittish cousins.
In this Bear Month episode of Tooth and Claw podcast, bear biologist and host Wes Larson tells his cohosts, Jeff Larson and Mike Smith, the story of one particular sloth bear—or, as some researchers theorize, several—that took that tendency to an extreme in Mysore, India, in 1957, killing at least 12 different people and injuring another 24. It’s a sobering story, and one that has a lot to teach us about one of the world’s lesser-known bear species. Listen on Spotify below, or catch the episode on Apple Podcasts.
From 2025