Also killer whales. It is disturbing to see them playing "catch" with a seal. At the same time they typically don't harm humans that share their space, it is curious
I have seen trailcamera footage of a cougar bringing a live deer back to its cubs so they can learn how to kill. The cubs seemed confused, playing with the deer.
This kind of behavior is common to housecats too - they'll lame a small animal and bring it to their kittens for practice.
Another thing worth noting - most cats like to eat their prey intestines first without caring whether or not it's alive (for pre-digested fiber and other nutrients not common in meat). For larger cats that often hunt by leaping from above and breaking the neck in one stroke the prey will probably be dead, but otherwise they're probably not.
Even without kittens, house cats will often take a captured small animal inside (still alive) and dump it near their caretaker and expect them to finish the job.
Our cat has only access to a confined (extremely high walls) garden (largely left to grow wild for environmental reasons) due to proximity to a road where people drive extremely badly, and still manages to occasionally succeed at bringing something in, usually dumping it at someone’s feet and going “ok you do it”.
My interpretation of that behavior is that they think you're a kitten. After all, they've never seen you kill anything! It's reasonable to conclude that you need some practice.
I specified primates because big cats eat more baboons than humans, but they kill both species in a very similar fashion, so let's open up the problem space.
So, really straightforward, in the context of bears eating people, someone implied that a cat will toy with you to death. I asked for evidence that they do this with primates, someone shared an anecdote about deer that isn't relevant to "bears eating people".
I'm not saying primates are exceptional, rather, that the story about deer is irrelevant.
The presence of a neck means the cat is more likely to play with its food? That is outside my world model having lived around wild predators, including wild cats, most of my life. I had a mountain lion kill a deer three nights ago outside my house on our property. It seemingly didn't kill it outright since I heard the deer 15 minutes later make a similar sound. I have seen the same behavior in house cats with mice and lizards. The case is on y'all to say why a primate as prey would be different
I think "play with their prey" is hard to define. But since you seem to just want big cats doing that behavior whatever it is with humans, is 10-15 minutes enough?
"The tiger was seen batting the young man like a toy as he held his hands in prayer. Masqood was grabbed by the neck as terrified witnesses began throwing sticks and stones, shooting at the animal in an attempt to distract it in a desperate bid to save Masqood.
One witness recalled racing over to the enclosure after hearing Masqood's screams. There, he saw Masqood locked in the tiger's jaws, "writhing badly in pain". He added that Masqood "kept suffering for the next 10-15 minutes" with another witness saying Vijay the tiger kept "roaming around" the enclosure, carrying Masqood by his neck."
I don't think it's considered unusual, I've heard it a few times before. Stories you hear will be animals with human exposure generally. If you want to get deep into it that's a thesis. But big cats not killing primates quickly seems not unusual.
