What does a bear do in the middle of hibernation? What is hibernation? When do bears and other animals hibernate? Why are the paws of bears covered in tatters of skin after winter?
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In common parlance they say that a bear hibernates during the winter; biologists call this period “winter sleep.” The duration of hibernation depends on weather conditions, health and age of the animal; Usually this is the period from the second half of November to the first half of April.
Before going into a den, bears save nutrients. Most of the diet consists of food of plant origin (berries, herbaceous plants, acorns, nuts). They often dig up chipmunk holes and eat nut reserves (often together with the owner). In addition, bears eat ant larvae, bird eggs, fish, small rodents and ungulates. Brown bears rarely kill wild ungulates themselves; They mainly eat carrion or take prey from wolves, lynxes, and wolverines. Bears cover up prey or found carrion with brushwood and stay nearby until they eat the entire carcass. In years favorable for food, adult bears accumulate an 8-12-centimeter layer of subcutaneous fat (the weight of fat reserves reaches 40% total weight beast). It is this fat accumulated over the summer and autumn that the bear’s body feeds in the winter.
Before going into a den, bears carefully confuse their tracks. For dens, they usually choose remote and reliable places. The main condition is that the home should be dry, quiet and isolated from the presence of unexpected guests. Bears insulate their homes with branches and line the bedding with layers of moss. Sometimes the layer of litter reaches half a meter. Brown bears sleep alone, and only females who have young yearlings sleep together with their cubs. It happens that several generations of bears use the same den
It is curious that in other hibernating animals (hedgehogs, chipmunks, etc.) the body temperature drops sharply, but in bears it drops by only 3-5 degrees. The heart beats rhythmically, although slower than usual, and breathing becomes somewhat less frequent. The animal does not urinate or defecate. In this case, any other animal would experience fatal poisoning within a week, but in bears a unique process begins recycling waste products into useful proteins.
There is an opinion that during hibernation a bear sucks its paw. This is wrong. In January-February, the hard skin on the paw pads changes; At the same time, the old skin bursts, peels, and is very itchy. In order to somehow reduce these sensations, the animal simply licks its paws.
Every schoolchild knows about the fact that every autumn black and brown bears hibernate. But even adults cannot answer exactly how long bears sleep. Throughout the spring and summer, the bear actively feeds in order to provide its body with the necessary supply of fat for the winter. And with the onset of the first cold weather, it begins to look for a suitable place for wintering, equips it with moss and withered grass, and then falls asleep. During this period, he seems to “switch” to an economical mode of existence. That is, the bear does not so much sleep as lightly doze in order to protect itself from attacks by enemies.
In most cases, bears hibernate in November, but if the month is warm enough, their sleep time may shift to December. What is noteworthy: these animals do not sleep continuously; sometimes they can even look out of the den to “scout the situation.” It happens that a bear may change its wintering place because the initially chosen shelter turns out to be inconvenient or too damp. If another place cannot be found, the half-asleep animal begins to wander through the forest, which is why the bear received the name “connecting rod.” During this period he becomes dangerous.
Bears do not sleep continuously, sometimes they can even look out of the den to “scout the situation”
Unlike males, who guard their den even in winter, females hibernate differently, since at this time they produce offspring. Moreover, the bear can sleep peacefully: her body works so well that the cubs are fed and warmed until the mother wakes up. While the female herself does not eat or drink during hibernation, she only turns over from side to side, instinctively protecting the babies. The she-bear sleeps soundly until spring and wakes up exhausted. Immediately after waking up, the first thing she does is go in search of food, mainly berries: cranberries and lingonberries.
It is impossible to accurately answer the question of how long bears sleep in winter, since there is no definite figure. They wake up when the snow begins to melt and the sun begins to warm. And also when their fat reserves run out. This happens differently in many regions; on average, a bear sleeps for three to five months. In our forests, hibernation lasts approximately 150 days, and in northern latitudes can last up to 200 days. In the Caucasus, bears do not sleep at all; they simply do not need to. The same as with polar bears: they also do not sleep because they are accustomed to other food, which does not go away in winter.
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It's no secret that the Siberian winter is a difficult test for many animals, and bears are no exception.
In common parlance they say that a bear hibernates; biologists say that it goes into winter sleep. Details about this most interesting process A little. The main reason is the difficulty of data collection.
Brown bear It is found everywhere in the reserve, both in all types of forests and in the mountain-tundra belt. On the territory of the reserve it makes seasonal movements from forests to the high mountain zone and back, often using trails and country roads for migrations.
What does a bear eat before hibernation?
Before going into a den, the owner of the taiga needs to accumulate nutrients. The bear is an omnivore, but most his diet in Kuznetsk Alatau, as in many other places, consists of food of plant origin: berries, herbaceous plants, acorns, nuts.
Cedar cones- one of the favorite delicacies of bears and one of the best fattening foods. Young animals can climb trees behind them and break off branches. But mostly they collect fallen cones from the ground. To get to the nuts, the bear collects the pine cones in a pile and crushes them with its paws, from where, then, lying on the ground, it picks out the nuts along with the shell with its tongue. The shells are partially discarded during the meal and partially eaten.
Often the attention of bears is attracted by the stocks of nuts made by chipmunks. By digging up the animals' burrows, bears get to the nuts and eat them, often together with the owner. They do not miss the opportunity to feast on ant larvae, bird eggs or fish; they also hunt small rodents and ungulates. A brown bear rarely kills wild ungulates itself; it mainly devours them as carrion or takes the prey of other predators (wolves, lynxes, wolverines).
There are known facts of predators eating such species of wild ungulates as elk, deer, and roe deer. He covers the prey or found carrion with brushwood and stays nearby until he eats the carcass completely. If the animal is not very hungry, it often waits several days until the meat becomes softer.
It is very important how productive the year was for fattening feed. Lean years can greatly delay the time for bears to go to dens, and animals can continue to feed even at twenty-degree frosts and almost half a meter snow cover, digging out cones from under the snow, trying to gain the fat reserves necessary for wintering. In years favorable for food, adult bears accumulate a layer of subcutaneous fat up to 8-12 cm, and the weight of fat reserves reaches 40% of the total weight of the animal. It is this fat accumulated over the summer and autumn that the bear’s body feeds on in the winter, surviving the harsh winter period with the least deprivation.
Hungry years lead to the appearance of connecting rod bears
These are animals that have not had time to gain sufficient fat reserves, which is why they cannot hibernate. Connecting rods, as a rule, are doomed to death from hunger and frost or from a hunter. But not every bear encountered in the forest in winter will be a crank. During “after-hours” bears appear in the forest, whose sleep in their den is disturbed. A normally well-fed bear, but torn from hibernation, is forced to look for a new, quieter place to sleep. Animal sleep is often interrupted by human disturbance.
Bear's den
Before heading to the den, the bear diligently confuses its tracks: it meanders, walks through windbreaks, and even walks backwards along its own tracks. For dens, they usually choose remote and reliable places. They are often located along the edges of impassable swamps, along the banks of forest lakes and rivers, in windfalls and in logging areas. The brown bear makes its winter home in depressions under uprooted roots or tree trunks, sometimes on a pile of brushwood or near an old woodpile. Less often, it chooses a cave for its home or digs deep earthen holes - soil dens. The main condition is that the home should be dry, quiet and isolated from the presence of unexpected guests. One of the signs of the proximity of a den is large bald spots in the moss, gnawed or broken trees. The animal insulates its shelter with branches and lines the bedding with layers of moss. Sometimes the layer of litter reaches half a meter. It happens that several generations of bears use the same den.
At the beginning of winter, female bears give birth to offspring
From one to four cubs are born, but more often two. Babies are born blind, without fur and teeth. They weigh only half a kilogram and barely reach 25 cm in length. It is interesting that the nipples of female bears are not located along the line of the abdomen, as in most animals, but in the very warm places: in the armpits and inguinal cavities. The cubs feed on 20 percent fat milk from their still sleeping mother and grow quickly. Within a few months of such feeding, the cubs are completely transformed, and they emerge from the den already shaggy and nimble. True, they are still very dependent.
How a bear sleeps in a den
In the den, in warmth and safety, the bears sleep for a long time and cold winter. Often the bear sleeps on its side, curled up in a ball, sometimes on its back, less often it sits with its head lowered between its paws. If an animal is disturbed while sleeping, it easily awakens. Often the bear itself leaves the den during prolonged thaws, returning to it at the slightest cold snap.
Animals hibernating (for example, hedgehogs, chipmunks, etc.) become numb, their body temperature drops sharply, and, although vital activity continues, its signs are almost invisible. In a bear, the body temperature decreases slightly, by only 3-5 degrees and fluctuates between 29 and 34 degrees. The heart beats rhythmically, although slower than usual, and breathing becomes somewhat less frequent. The animal does not urinate or defecate. In this case, any other animal would experience fatal poisoning within a week, but bears begin a unique process for recycling waste products into useful proteins. A dense plug forms in the rectum, which some people call a “plug.” The predator loses it as soon as it leaves the den. The cork consists of tightly compressed dry grass, the fur of the bear itself, ants, pieces of resin and pine needles.
Brown bears sleep alone, and only females who have young yearlings sleep together with their cubs. The duration of hibernation depends on weather conditions, health and age of the animal. But usually this is the period from the second half of November to the first half of April.
Why does a bear suck its paw?
There is a funny opinion that a bear sucks its paw during hibernation. But in fact, in January, February it happens change of hard skin on the paw pads, while the old skin bursts, flakes, and itches severely, and in order to somehow reduce these unpleasant sensations animal licks its paws.
It took more than one thousand years natural selection so that such a a complex system adaptations as a result of which bears acquired the ability to survive in areas with harsh climatic conditions. One can only marvel at the diversity and wisdom of nature.
Previously on the topic Bears:
V. NIKOLAENKO.
“Photographing bears is a very dangerous activity. I’ve been photographing them for 30 years. Over time, my courage has diminished significantly, and experience has gained. But no experience guarantees safety.” These are the words of Vitaly Aleksandrovich Nikolaenko, a remarkable nature researcher who devoted his entire life to photographing and studying Kamchatka bears. It so happened that his article "Hello, bear! How are you?" (“Science and Life” No. 12, 2003) became the last lifetime publication. At the end of December 2003, Vitaly Aleksandrovich monitored a bear that was not in its den. Leaving his backpack and skis behind, he followed the animal's tracks, apparently hoping to take a few pictures. But it is impossible to predict the behavior of even a familiar bear - Nikolaenko himself spoke about this. And he had already had encounters with bears that were fraught with serious danger. Last meeting with a stranger ended tragically... In memory of Vitaly Aleksandrovich Nikolaenko, we publish notes that were not included in the previous article.
Science and life // Illustrations
Vitaly Alexandrovich Nikolaenko.
While fishing, the bear quenches its thirst by plunging its muzzle deep into the water.
The bear comes to the river not only for fish, but also to take a bath.
The bear makes beds in the snow, insulating them with branches or birch dust.
After leaving the den, the cubs like to roll around in the snow.
Family of yearlings.
LERLOGS
A den is an animal’s winter refuge, which provides optimal microclimatic conditions that allow it to survive a long period of unfavorable food and weather conditions with minimal expenditure of energy resources. It also serves as a maternity hospital for females, and as a nursery for newborns.
The forty dens that I was able to find and describe were unpaved. Hunters from the south of the Kamchatka Peninsula talk about dens that are located in rocky caves, but there is no reliable data about this. I myself discovered only one unexcavated den among volcanic blocks, on the shore of Kuril Lake. Through a narrow, triangular-shaped hole, the animal penetrated into the den chamber formed by the flat sides of the blocks. The length of the den reached 2.5 m, and its bottom was covered with volcanic slag. At the far end is a shallow bed. Two dark spots on the back wall indicated that bears had been using this den for decades.
The first to hibernate are females with underyearlings (first-years) and young individuals. Mass migration to dens occurs from mid-October. The animals spend two to three weeks in their dens and lie down in them in early and mid-November. For some time they can still leave the dens, lie nearby during the day, and hide inside at night. Bears do not dig dens in advance. Stories that a bear, going to a den, confuses its tracks and meanders, are the fantasies of hunters. Observations have shown that bears actually meander through alder forests during this period, avoid open areas and actively mark trees in resting areas. But looping is nothing more than a reaction to unconscious discomfort mental condition, prompting the bear to seek reliable shelter. The bear knows the habitat well and, leaving the spawning area for a den, finds two or three old dens, sometimes already occupied by other bears. I have never observed a bear challenging the right to an occupied den.
Most dens are located in thickets of dwarf alder, on the slopes of ridges and ravines, along dry stream beds. Based on their shape, they can be divided into three groups. The first ones are pear-shaped, with a well-defined elongated hole between the forehead (the opening of the den) and the den chamber, with a resting position at the rear wall. The second ones are spherical or ovoid in shape, without an oblong hole; their height, width and length do not differ much in size, and the deepening of the bed is a continuation of the walls of the den. Still others are tortoise-shaped, with a flat oval bottom; their length is 1.5-2 times the width, the top is hemispherical, stretched on the sides, the height reaches 100-130 cm, and the width in the center is almost 2 times more height. The bed is located at the back wall of the den and is its continuation. All dens have flatter back walls than the sides.
The most durable dens are located under the rhizomes of birch trees. Their roof is supported by wide-growing roots. As a rule, such dens are used for decades by both family groups and dominant males.
If the bear does not find a ready-made den, he builds a new one. The bear digs a den with both front paws. A slight shift of the den chamber to the left or right side depends on which paw the animal works more with - the left or the right. The soil is thrown out of the den between the hind legs or to the side. How he manages to shovel up to ten cubic meters of earth through a narrow hole remains a mystery. He climbs into the den on his bellies, on his elbows, with his hind legs stretched out, and gets out of it in the same way, crawling. The beast proportions the volume of the den to the size of its body. Its length and width should be no less than the length of the body, and its height should be slightly greater than the height of the body at the withers, so that when sitting in a prone position, the animal does not rest its head on the ceiling. Digging a den takes two to three days. Thick rhizomes that interfere with passage are chewed out by the bear and thrown out. Several fragments of rhizomes may remain in the den.
WINTER SLEEP AND AWAKENING
The life of a bear in a den is supported by feeding on fat reserves accumulated in the fall. The processes occurring in a sleeping bear are similar to the processes occurring in the body of a starving person, but in a bear they are much more rational. Despite the long immobility in the den, the strength of the bones does not decrease. During winter sleep, a bear's brain cells are in oxygen starvation mode for five months, but do not die, although 90% less blood enters the brain than usual.
Scientists suggest that a special hormone, which comes from the hypothalamus every autumn, controls the processes of obesity and moderate weight loss in bears. After hibernation, the bear completely retains its muscles and does not feel hungry for another two weeks. This explains his playful mood after leaving the den and his aimless wandering around the habitat.
In Kamchatka, bears leave their dens from the third ten days of March to the end of the first ten days of June. As a rule, large mature and middle-aged males are the first to leave dens. Then a mass exit begins, and together with the males, single females and young females of the first mating spring, family groups of four-year-olds (three-year-olds), third-year-olds (two-year-olds) and second-year-olds (one-year-olds) rise up. The last of the family groups to leave the dens are females with young of the year.
Bears come out of their dens into the snow, and spring is in the air - daytime temperatures reach +4°C, and at night frosts reach _6°C. The snow is slowly moistened, compacted, and structured. Having left the den, the animal remains next to it, if no one bothers it, for several more days, and at night it can return to the den. The first beds, as a rule, are located two to three meters from the brow, then the animal begins to move away 50-100 m. During the day, in the sun, it lies down in the open snow, and at night it does not return to the den, but settles down on the snow beds. He makes a bedding, crushing the tops of alder or cedar branches that have melted from the snow, or strips the bark from a tree under which he lies down to rest, or smashes a dry stump into chips and sleeps on its rotten fragments.
After three to five days, the bear leaves the den. Studying the tracks suggests that in the first two or three days the animal lacks purposeful movements. It's like walking freely for the pleasure of moving. Contrary to general idea The fact that movement should be directed to places where food is found, animals roam rather randomly. Their traces are found in the middle mountains, and on the slopes of hills, up to 1000 m and higher above sea level, and in the coastal forest zone, and along the ocean coast. In the birch forest area, a bear, moving idly, destroys three or four dry trees along a two or three kilometer path, but not to insulate the bed, but for playful fun, from excess strength and the desire to move. The need for play in the post-berth period is higher than in other periods. Free wandering becomes more regular by the end of May, and animals gradually concentrate on the first thawed patches with grass seedlings, on the sunny slopes of ravines, on the banks of ice-free rivers and streams, and those who reach sea coast, - y coastline ocean.
The early spring feeding period begins, meager in the amount of food, “hungry”, in our opinion, but in fact - completely normal for the animal. The secret is in the so-called endogenous nutrition - the use of fat reserves accumulated since the fall, when the volume of fattening feed consumed exceeded daily norm 3-4 times. The beast was forced to gorge itself on foodless winter and spring days and even in the summer, since the nutritional value of herbaceous vegetation is low. By the end summer season bears completely lose their fat reserves, and those who did not have enough of them begin to lose muscle mass.
BEDS
During the active period of the annual cycle, the bear uses resting places at night or during the day - depressions in the ground (in the spring, after leaving the den, lying areas are made in the snow). In summer, the bear digs nests in the ground or uses someone else's. In the fall, at the first frost, the ground beds are insulated with a bedding of dry grass stems. Such beds are called nesting beds. As the night temperature drops, the amount of litter in the bed increases and the beds themselves look like huge nests on the ground. To collect bedding, the animal scrapes with its claws, then with one or the other paw alternately, raking up small piles of dry grassy stems in one place. Then he moves one or two steps forward and again makes piles. So the animal walks 5-10 m, then moves back, raking the prepared piles of stems under itself with a roller. The roller rolls into the bed and again begins to rake up piles, moving forward. The stems of some herbs, such as reed grass, are very strong, and the bear does not always manage to scratch the desired bunch. Then he helps himself with his mouth: he tilts the stems to the side, bites them with his teeth, rakes them into a bunch and moves on. Rolling out 20-30 rollers, he fills the ground bed with a huge heap of dry grass, then climbs on top of it and rake out a hole in the center with a diameter of about a meter and a depth of up to 50 cm. Such a bed forms sides 1-1.5 m wide, sometimes up to 2-2.5 m. The bear clearly does not need sides of such width. Apparently, when collecting building materials, he does not measure its volume with own body. This bed is used for several days - before rain or wet snowfalls; the bear leaves it as soon as the bedding freezes. Only one large male makes such huge nests on Lake Lesnoye. The thickness of the litter at the bottom of the ground bed is compressed to 10-20 cm. In nesting beds built in the fall, the litter can be different: from reed grass, sholomainik, fallen leaves, destroyed dry stumps. When the grasses go under the snow, the bear uses ground beds in the alder thickets. He clears them of snow and lays them on a thin layer of peat humus.
In the spring, after leaving the den, the bear makes bedding from the branches of alder or dwarf cedar, but more often it uses dry birch trunks, breaking them into chips and scraping out the dust from them with its claws. In the Valley of Geysers, bears have adapted to warm themselves in early spring, during night frosts, in beds dug in warm soil. In summer and early autumn, bears make opposite demands on their beds - they should not retain heat, but take away its excess, that is, be cool and damp. To do this, animals make them deeper and wider - up to 1.5 m wide and up to 0.5 m deep. Animals dig such beds in damp places, not far from water, in dense tall grass, shaded by trees, or in clumps of alder trees, in damp soil.
Normal freshly dug soil beds have an average size of 80-80-20 cm, rarely up to a meter in width. Over time, other bears expand and deepen them. The average width of such beds is from 100 to 120 cm, and the depth is 20-30 cm. The question arises, how can an animal up to two meters long, with a huge body volume, fit in such a small bed? He uses it only as a “chair” in which he places his butt and part of his belly. And the upper half rests on the side of the bed.
WATER
The bear is inseparable from water. In summer, water, snowfields and damp soil are essential components comfortable conditions. They perform a thermoregulatory function. In its habitat, the animal knows all its baths. “Our own” is incorrectly said. Bathing places in the form of small lakes, pits filled with water, streams and rivers are common to all bears. In summer or autumn, after a long time of grazing under the sun, the animal goes to a watering place and immediately plunges its body into the water up to its ears. He can take a bath for 10-15 minutes, and then gets into dense thickets olshin and rests in deep, damp beds.
All the bears that graze in the summer in the grate meadows along the surf strip constantly swim in the ocean. They lie down on the surf line, with their heads towards the shore, and lie for 10-20 minutes, washed by the oncoming waves. Then, moving 15-20 m away, the animal digs a deep damp bed in the sand and lies down in it to rest.
At the end of May, at temperatures from +5 to +10°C, bears lie in snowy beds for 5-6 hours, waddling from side to side. In the mountains in June-July, bears use both snowfields and streams for cooling. They do not visit warm mineral springs: warm water does not attract bears.
The bear does not drink sea water, although it can catch fish in it, opposite the mouth of spawning rivers, and some of the salt water ends up in its mouth. But when capelin spawn, the bear prefers to collect it, washed up by the waves, on the shore.
If a bear stops in the river while fishing and, plunging his muzzle into the water up to his eyes, draws in water for 5-10 seconds, making five to seven intervals of 10-15 seconds, it means he has finished fishing and will now go out to rest. After resting on the shore for about an hour, the bear begins to feel thirsty again. Even if the river is closer than a swampy puddle, he prefers to drink from the puddle. And if, after relaxing on the shore in late autumn and winter, he goes to the river to drink, then he tries not to go into the water, but to drink, kneeling down, barely reaching the water with his muzzle. When he is lazy to go to the river, he eats snow. Having drunk, he returns to his bed or can lie down right there, on the shore, and watch the river, looking for fish with his eyes.
SNOW AND BEAR
The bear is born under the snow, comes out of the den into the snow, in some cases uses it in the summer and lies down in the den under the snow new winter. In autumn, snow covers the berry tundras, cranberry bogs and dwarf cedar forests, completely depriving the bear of plant food.
Deep winter snows cover the den, insulate the ceiling and seal the forehead. In the dwarf alder forest, the brow of the den is most often blocked by branches bent under the weight of snow. Rumors that a bear plugs the entrance hole from the inside with moss or dry grass for the winter are another common myth. There must be a hole in the thickness of the snow from the forehead to the surface of the snow - it serves as a ventilation pipe for thermoregulation and gas exchange in the den.
Coming out of the den, the bear finds himself on the snow, but not on the fluffy and loose snow that accompanied him to the den, but on a dense snow crust. The morning crust at the end of April - beginning of May looks like white asphalt. The crust of welded firn grains can reach a thickness of 5-10 cm. Both humans and bears can walk freely on this crust. 2-3 hours after sunrise, the ice adhesions are destroyed. The animal begins to fall 10-30 cm, and sometimes up to its belly. To save energy, he prefers to move along the holes of his own or someone else's tracks.
PAWS SUCKING
The sucking reflex in cubs separated from their mother in the third or fourth month of life and raised in a single family group persists until three years old. The cubs suck each other's fur on their backs and sides with the same rumbling sound with which they suck their mother's breast. Since they do not receive food reinforcement, the process itself is important to them. Perhaps wool sucking is a factor in closer communication with each other and explains family attachment before family breakdown. The bear cub, left alone, prompted by the sucking instinct, diligently sucks the clawed fingers of its front paw. This continues until the age of three. This is where, apparently, there is an opinion that a bear in a den sucks its paw.
TABLECLOTH-SELF-ASSEMBLED
A bear “table” in the fall is like a self-assembled tablecloth. The bear feast begins in August and ends in October. During this period, crowberry and blueberry ripen on the berry tundra, as well as honeysuckle, lingonberry, princeberry, and juniper. On the tundra of the Tikhaya River, up to 25 bears gather at one time at one “table” with an area of 6 km2. At the end of August, rowan berries ripen in the forest. In October you can pick cranberries in the swamps. Fish enter the rivers. Bears meet her on the rifts, on the shallows, gorge themselves in the first two weeks, and then eat only delicacies - caviar and brain cartilage. Having eaten enough fish, they go “for the berries”; after eating enough berries, they go after the fish. From the abundance of energy-intensive food they quickly become fat.
At the end of October, the self-assembled tablecloth “fades”, the bears lose interest in it and, tired after six months of continuous “work,” migrate to rest. Ahead - again sleep in a den.