Map of where bears are found. Brown bear: brief description, weight, dimensions. Habits of a brown bear. Reproduction and offspring of brown bears

The brown bear is the national symbol of our country. This animal impresses with its power and courage. The brown bear is a representative of predatory mammals. It belongs to the bear family. Today we will talk about brown bears - these proud and strong animals.

On our planet, this species is represented by several subspecies living in different parts of the world.

The varieties of brown bear are:

1. Apennine brown bear,
2. Gobi brown bear,

Appearance of brown bears

Depending on its habitat, this species varies in weight and height. Average individuals reach a weight of 350 to 600 kilograms. The body length of brown bears is from 1.2 to 2 meters. Males, as a rule, are almost 2 times larger than females.

Representatives of this species of the bear family have a very powerful physique and a massive head. The eyes and ears of these predators are not very large. To support such a powerful body, nature provided brown bears with strong paws with strong, sharp claws.

The hair of these bears is very thick, the color varies and depends on the area of ​​residence. But for the most part this species is colored in tones from light fawn to black. In grizzly bears, the fur on the dorsal part of the body has light tips, and Tien Shan bears are grayish-white.

Where does the brown bear live?

The territory inhabited by various subspecies of brown bears is quite wide. In the European part, this species can be found in the Alps, Pyrenees, and Apennines. The Scandinavian Peninsula is also inhabited by them. Very common in Finland. Sometimes it is found in the Carpathians and forests of central Europe.

The brown bear also lives in Asia. It inhabits certain parts of Palestine, Iraq and Iran, China, Korea, and Japan. In our country, this species lives in almost all forests, except the southernmost ones. Subspecies of brown bear (grizzly and Kodiak) have also inhabited the North American continent and live in Canada, Alaska and the islands nearby.

Lifestyle of brown bears

This species of the bear family is a solitary animal leading a wandering lifestyle. This behavior is due to the constant search for food. If there is plenty of food for a brown bear in the inhabited territory, then it does not go too far from its “home” place.

Its natural habitats are dense forests or clearings with nearby bodies of water. Bears of this species are quite dexterous, despite their clumsy appearance. As young individuals, they are excellent at climbing trees, and the ability to swim well remains for the rest of their lives.

Active life activity occurs at dusk or at night. It goes into hibernation for the winter. But some subspecies of brown bears stay awake all winter.

What does a brown bear eat?

Most of his diet consists of plant foods: wild berries (blueberries, raspberries), oats and corn. It feeds on insects and their larvae. He often enjoys honey. It rarely attacks large animals, but among small ones it likes to eat mice, eggs of hens and their chicks. Having come to a reservoir for food, bears fish very well and then eat their catch with pleasure.

Reproduction and offspring of brown bears

The mating season for these animals begins in May. At this time, bears have a bad character and it is better to avoid meeting them, because you can run into “rudeness”. They have little control over their behavior, and therefore can become easy prey. After mating, the female carries the cubs for about seven months.

If you ask a foreigner to say three association words about Russia, in most cases they will be bear, matryoshka and balalaika. Some will remember strong alcoholic drinks, earflap hats and extreme cold. But the brown bear is definitely a natural symbol of our country. The image of a bear adorns the coats of arms of many Russian cities: Yekaterinburg, Veliky Novgorod, Norilsk, Yaroslavl and others. The bear is called the “master of the forest,” partly because it is one of the largest land predators. The bear is a symbol of strength and power.

Description and dimensions

What does a brown bear look like? Many saw him in childhood, visiting the zoo or reading illustrated fairy tales, because the “clubfooted bear” is a frequent hero of children's literature. In nature, an adult brown bear is a large predatory animal with a large body. The bear's head is massive, but with small ears and eyes. Compared to polar bears, the brown representatives' heads are not very extended forward. The tail is short and does not stand out, because hidden under fur. The paws are large, powerful, with long claws up to 10 cm.

The fur is thick and long. The fur color of a brown bear ranges from light brown to black. Newborn cubs have light spots on their chest and neck that disappear over time. Brown bears molt once a year, but this process lasts from the beginning of spring to the end of autumn, until the animal goes into a den.

The weight of different individuals of brown bears differs depending on the habitat of the animals. The largest predators live in Alaska and Kamchatka. Their weight on average is 500 kg, but there are individuals up to 750 kg. In Europe, the average weight of bears is 300-400 kg, and their length is from 1.2 to 2 meters. Grizzlies (North American brown bears), standing on their hind legs, will stretch out to 2.8-3 meters. Despite their massive size, bears run fast (at speeds of up to 50 km/h), swim well, and in their youth easily climb trees.

Varieties

There are hundreds of varieties of brown bear. The most common are the common brown, grizzly and Kodiak (inhabit the islands of the Kodiak archipelago in Alaska). Subspecies are also known:

• Siberian brown bear (lives in Siberia east of the Yenisei);
• Gobi brown bear - mazalay (lives in the Gobi Desert, Mongolia; listed in the Red Book because it is endangered);
• Tien Shan (lives in the Pamir, Tien Shan and Himalaya mountains);
• Ussuri, or Japanese;
• Tibetan;
• Syrian.

Habitat

The habitat of the brown bear in Russia occupies almost the entire forest and forest-tundra zone of the northern part of the country. In Europe, populations of brown predators are found in the Pyrenees, Cantabrian Mountains, Alps and Apennines. The animal also lives in Scandinavia and Finland. In Asia, this type of bear is common in Palestine, Iraq and Iran (in the north of the countries), China and Korea. In Japan, bears live on the island of Hokkaido. And residents of North America often encounter grizzly bears in Canada, Alaska and the northwestern United States.

Regardless of the continent, brown bears preferably live in forests, tundra, taiga and mountains. Adult males often live alone, while females usually live with cubs. Adult bears like to mark their territory, which reaches up to 400 square meters. km.

Nutrition

The brown bear is a predator, but its diet consists of 70-80% plant foods. He especially likes berries, nuts, acorns, stems and roots of forest plants. Bears love to feast on insects (ants and butterflies), worms, lizards, frogs and various rodents. Clubfoot's tastes include mice, marmots, gophers and chipmunks, but he prefers personally caught fish to all of them. It happens that a bear also eats the carcasses of ungulates: roe deer, fallow deer, elk and deer.

The plot of fairy tales, where a bear eats the contents of honey pots, is not fiction. In general, the etymology of the word “bear” is “knowing where the honey is”, “honey eater”.

Grizzlies living in Alaska also attack wolves, and Far Eastern brown bears hunt tigers. Bears often take prey from other predators. During the period of activity, the animal “eats” up to 200 kg of subcutaneous fat. With the resulting supply, the bear lies down to hibernate in a den.

For dens, bears choose dry holes protected by windbreaks, sometimes they dig a hibernation “house” in the ground or occupy caves and rock crevices. The clubfoot's winter sleep usually lasts from 80 to 200 days. Females with their offspring spend the most time in dens, and older males spend the least amount of time. During hibernation, up to 80 kg of accumulated fat is spent.

Reproduction

The mating season for brown bears begins in May-June. At this time, females go into estrus, which lasts 10-30 days. Males begin to actively select a mate for themselves, accompanying the search with strong roars and fights with other applicants, which sometimes end in death. During this period, males are very aggressive and dangerous. The established pair stays together for 30-40 days, and if a new one appears nearby who wants to be fertilized, then both the male and the female drive him away.

The female bear's embryo begins to develop with a delay, not earlier than November, and birth occurs in January or February. As a rule, 2-3 bear cubs are born, weighing 0.5-0.7 kg and up to 23 cm tall. Their fur is still short and sparse, their eyes do not see, and their ears do not hear. The cubs' hearing returns to normal only 2 weeks after birth, and their vision – after a month. By spring, babies have a full set of baby teeth and, in addition to mother's milk, they can already eat berries, plants and insects.

By the time they leave the den, the cubs weigh up to 7 kg. Throughout the first year of life, the offspring does not leave the mother. The family will also spend the next hibernation in the den together. By the age of three, the bears will become sexually mature and will finally separate from their parents. And the cubs will become adult males and females at 10-11 years of age.

By the way, the father does not participate in the life of the offspring; all the troubles fall on the bear. The total lifespan of brown bears is up to 30 years in the wild and up to 50 years in captivity.

In the world of man

In children's literature, there are many fairy tales where the bear is one of the main characters: “Masha and the Bear”, “Three Bears”, “Teremok”, “Tops and Roots”. Of course, I remember the foreign, but already so dear, Winnie the Pooh. At the same time, a bear can be both a symbol of strength and power, and a clumsy and slightly stupid character. Nicknames are often invented for the literary bear: Mikhailo Potapych, Kosolapy, Toptygin.

Well-known proverbs and sayings about bears:

• Make friends with the bear, but hold on to your gun.
• Without killing the bear, do not sell the skins.
• The bear stepped on my ear.
• Two bears will not get along in one den.
• The bear is clumsy and hefty.
• The bear has nine songs, and those are about honey.
• The bear was wrong for killing the cow; The cow that went into the forest is also wrong.

People see bears that live in captivity in the zoo and in the circus. And individuals living in natural conditions often present a completely different interest to humans. Man has been hunting bears for a long time. The meat is used for food, the skin is used to make carpets, and the gall bladder is used in traditional Asian medicine. In many regions, hunting for brown bears is prohibited or limited by law, because this species is listed as “endangered” in the Red Book.

The opposite also happens when a predator attacks a person. More often this happens:

• when a female bear seeks to protect her offspring. She shows aggression towards a person, but not with the purpose of killing, and then so that the stranger leaves;
• when a man caught a bear next to his prey, even if it was the man’s own supplies;
• when the bears have a prolonged period of lack of food or when the rut is in progress (the period of mating of animals);
• Connecting bears also attack people - these are individuals who have not hibernated in a den or have woken up. Feeling very hungry, exhausted animals enter settlements and attack livestock and humans.

In general, the animal itself is afraid of humans and tries to hide. Therefore, during a chance encounter with a bear, it is recommended to make loud noises, knock, honk, etc. There is a high probability that the bear will not dare to approach the source of the noise.

As for the population, there are now about 200 thousand brown bears in the world. The majority live in Russia - 120 thousand, in the United States - 32 thousand (of which 95% are in Alaska), in Canada - 22 thousand. There are about 14 thousand individuals in Europe.

Bears are the largest among predatory animals. For example, an adult lion can weigh about 230 kilograms, a tiger - 270 kilograms, but the weight of a large polar bear and grizzly bear reaches 450 kilograms. And yet the largest bear in the world is rightfully called the Alaskan brown bear. The weight of some males of this species was more than 680 kilograms with a height of about three meters. I wouldn't want to meet such a giant somewhere on the trail. But these are average statistical indicators, but in real life there are specimens of bears whose parameters are much higher than the above. There is still a debate among people about which bears are the biggest, this is expressed in hunting stories and legends.

The Guinness Book of Records names the white polar bear as the largest bear on the planet. The average weight of these predators is in the range of 400-600 kg, length - 240-260 cm, height 1.6 m. The largest polar bear that was measured weighed, according to one version, 1002 kg, according to another - 900 kg. The length of this polar bear was 3.5 m. The polar bear's menu includes mainly walruses and seals. A male polar bear gains full physical fitness at the age of 9-10 years.

Among Alaskan brown bears there is an interesting subspecies, which scientists call Kodiak. So, among these Kodiaks, the heaviest bear measured was a giant, whose weight was 1134 kg. If he stood on his hind legs, then his height would be 4 m. Kodiaks are distinguished by long strong limbs, a muscular body and a massive head. These bears live alone and sleep in the winter, just like brown bears. The Kodiak diet includes fish and a variety of plant foods in the form of nuts, roots, berries and grass. Kodiaks very rarely hunt other species of animals. The Kodiak is not afraid of water, so it usually settles along the river bank. These bears live on the southern coast of Alaska. There is even an island called Kodiak.

The closest relatives of Kodiak bears are grizzly bears, which also reach enormous sizes. Currently, the Kodiak population is constantly increasing. Most of them live in the Kodiak National Forest, which is protected by law.

Among fossil animals, bears were also large predators. According to scientists, the largest of them is called the prehistoric South American short-nosed bear. His height was 3.4 m, weight - 1.6 tons. The bones of this giant were found in 1935 in Argentina at the La Plata construction site. According to scientists, this bear was the largest predator on the planet about 2 million years ago. The weight of individual representatives of this species, according to scientists, could reach up to 2 tons.

Recently, a giant man-eating bear was shot and killed by a US Forest Service employee in Alaska. A special commission, after measuring the parameters of the killed bear, found that the prey turned out to be the largest grizzly bear in the world. Such a bear could stand on its hind legs and look at the second floor window. His weight was 726 kg, and his height on his hind legs was 4.3 m.

These are the biggest bears in the world, cute and menacing, cute and scary, in a word, bright representatives of the animal world.

On the territory of the Russian Federation, there are mainly two species of bears: the Brown bear and the Polar bear. Let's look at each type separately:

(Ursus arctos): The brown bear in Russia is still quite common in the forests of Siberia and the Far East, in Kamchatka. In summer it often enters the tundra and highlands. In Chukotka it is often found in the tundra.
In Russia, its usual habitats are forests with windbreaks and burnt areas with dense growth of deciduous trees, shrubs and grasses; it is also often found next to meadows and oat fields.

Appearance: Brown bears are difficult to confuse with other animals - they are all large, shaggy, awkwardly built, with a large head, small ears and a short tail. The eyes glow dark red at night. Body length is up to 2 m, in Far Eastern bears - up to 2.8 m. There is a clearly visible depression in profile between the forehead and the bridge of the nose. In a standing animal, the withers are noticeably higher than the croup. The color is brown, less often black or reddish; in Caucasian animals it is usually lighter. There is a light stripe on the shoulders, especially often in young and South Kuril bears. Occasionally there is also a light spot on the chest. The ears are small and rounded.

The footprints are very wide and deep, five-toed, distinguished by long claws and clubfoot (this position of the paw is more convenient for climbing trees). The length of the fingerprints on the tracks of the front paws is 2-3 times less than the length of the palm print.

Average statistical dimensions: body length: up to 200 cm, height at withers: up to 100 cm, weight: up to 600 kg, claw length up to 10 cm.

Behavior and lifestyle: Brown bears are most active at dusk and at night, but sometimes also travel during the day.

Brown bears generally lead a sedentary lifestyle, moving along familiar paths. Bears place them in the most convenient places, choosing the shortest distance between objects that are significant to them. Despite their sedentary lifestyle, bears make seasonal migrations to places where food is currently available. In lean years, a bear can travel 200-300 km in search of food. For example, on the Pacific coast, during a massive migration of red fish, bears come from afar to river mouths.

In winter, bears hibernate in a den. In different habitats, bears sleep in winter from 2.5 to 6 months.

The inside of the den is arranged very carefully - the animal lines the bottom with moss, branches with pine needles, and tufts of dry grass. Dens are located on small islands among moss swamps, among windbreaks or dense small forests. Bears arrange them under inversions and logs, under the roots of large cedars and spruce trees. In mountainous areas, bears roost in earthen dens, which are located in rock crevices, shallow caves, and recesses under stones.

Bears sleep alone; only females who have cubs this year sleep with their cubs.

Bears sleep very lightly; if the animal is disturbed, it easily awakens, leaves the den and wanders in circles for a long time before lying down again. Often bears themselves leave their dens during prolonged thaws and return to them at the slightest cold snap.

In the summer, male bears mark the boundaries of their territory by standing on their hind legs and tearing bark from trees with their claws. Where there are no trees, bears tear up any suitable objects, such as clay slopes.

Diet: The brown bear is an omnivore; it eats both plant and animal food, but most of its diet, oddly enough, is plant food.

It is most difficult for a bear to feed itself in early spring, when there is not enough plant food. At this time of year, he sometimes hunts even large ungulates, eats carrion, digs up anthills, getting larvae and the ants themselves.

From the beginning of the appearance of greenery and until the mass ripening of various berries, the bear spends most of its time fattening in forest clearings and meadows, eating umbelliferous plants (hogweed, angelica), thistle, and wild garlic. When the berries begin to ripen, the bears begin to eat them: first blueberries, raspberries, blueberries, honeysuckle, later - lingonberries, cranberries.

The autumn period is the most important for preparing for winter. At this time, bears eat acorns, hazelnuts, pine nuts in the taiga, and wild apples, pears, cherries, and mulberries in the southern mountain forests. Climbing fruit-bearing trees, the bear breaks off branches, eating the fruits on the spot, or throws them down, and sometimes simply shakes the crown.

In early autumn, the bear loves to eat ripening oats. Less agile animals graze under the trees, picking up fallen fruits. The brown bear willingly digs into the ground, extracting succulent rhizomes and soil invertebrates, turns over stones, extracting and eating worms, beetles and other living creatures from under them. Bears living near the rivers of the Pacific coast, during the red fish run, gather in dozens near the rifts and deftly catch fish.

Reproduction: The breeding season of brown bears is May-June. At this time, the males are vigorously sorting things out. The formed pair stays together for about a month, and if a new contender appears, not only the male, but also the female drives him away. In January, mother bears bring from 1 to 4 cubs in their den, which weigh only 500 g. The cubs' eyes open after a month. After 2-3 months, the babies come out. By the time they leave the den, they weigh from 3 to 7 kg. The mother feeds the cubs for up to six months. But already at 3 months of age, young animals begin to eat plant foods, imitating a mother bear. For the entire first year of life, the cubs remain with their mother, spending another winter with her in the den. At 3-4 years of age, young bears become sexually mature, but reach full bloom only at the age of 8-10 years.

Lifespan: In nature they live for about 30 years, in captivity they live up to 45-50 years.

Habitat: Each individual plot occupied by one animal can be very extensive, covering an area of ​​up to several hundred square meters. km. The boundaries of the plots are poorly marked, and in very rough terrain they are practically absent. The home ranges of males and females overlap. Within the site there are places where the animal usually feeds, where it finds temporary shelters or lies in a den.

Economic importance: The bear serves as an object of sport hunting. Fat and bile are used for medicinal purposes. The value of bear bile provokes poaching of bears. Bear fat, like other hibernating animals, contains a large amount of vitamins and has healing properties.

In the mythology of most peoples of Eurasia and North America, the bear serves as a connecting link between the human world and the animal world. Primitive hunters considered it obligatory, after catching a bear, to perform a ritual ritual, asking for forgiveness from the spirit of the killed one. The ritual is still performed by the indigenous inhabitants of the remote regions of the North and Far East. In some places, killing a bear with a firearm is still considered a sin. The ancient ancestors of European peoples were so afraid of the bear that it was forbidden to say out loud its names arctos (among the Aryans in the 5th-1st millennia BC, later among the Latin peoples) and mechka (among the Slavs in the 5th-9th centuries AD). Instead, nicknames were used: ursus among the Romans, vea among the ancient Germans, vedmid or bear among the Slavs. Over the centuries, these nicknames turned into names, which in turn were also prohibited among hunters and replaced by nicknames (among the Russians - Mikhailo Ivanovich, Toptygin, Boss). In the early Christian tradition, the bear was considered the beast of Satan.

Bear meat is almost always infected with worms, especially in old and weakened animals. Therefore, it should be consumed with great caution. Of particular danger is trichinosis, which can infect up to a third of brown bears. Triquinas are not killed by smoking, freezing or pickling; Meat can only be reliably disinfected by heat treatment, for example, boiling for half an hour.

(Ursus maritimus): The polar bear is the largest predator in the animal kingdom. Body length is 1.6-3.3 m, weight of males is 400-500 kg (sometimes up to 750), females - up to 380 kg. The bear swims and dives excellently, and swims tens of kilometers into the open sea. Moves quickly on ice. Leads a solitary lifestyle, but sometimes groups of 2-5 animals are found; Several bears may gather near large carrion.

Habitat: In Russia, the polar bear constantly lives in the space from Franz Josef Land and Novaya Zemlya to Chukotka. On floating ice it sometimes reaches Kamchatka. Distances deep into the continent have been noted (up to 500 km along the Yenisei River). The southern border of the habitat coincides with the edge of drifting ice. As the ice melts and breaks up, bears move to the northern border of the Arctic Basin. With the beginning of stable ice formation, animals begin their reverse migration to the south.

Behavior and lifestyle: Polar bears hunt pinnipeds, mainly ringed seals, bearded seals and harp seals. They come to the land of coastal zones of islands and the mainland, hunt walrus cubs, and also eat sea waste, carrion, fish, birds and their eggs, and less often rodents, berries, mosses and lichens. Pregnant females lie down in dens, which they build on land from October to March-April. In broods there are usually 1-3, more often 1-2 cubs. They stay with the female bear until they are two years old. The maximum lifespan of a polar bear is 25-30 years, rarely more.

The polar bear has incomparable resistance to cold. Its thick, long fur consists of hairs that are hollow in the middle and contain air. Many mammals have similar protective hollow hairs - an effective means of insulation - but those of the bear have their own characteristics. Polar bear fur retains heat so well that it cannot be detected by aerial infrared photography. Excellent thermal insulation is also provided by the subcutaneous layer of fat, which reaches 10 cm in thickness with the onset of winter. Without it, the bears would hardly be able to swim 80 km in icy Arctic water.

In July, many of the polar bears that traveled with drifting ice move to the coasts of continents and islands. On land they become vegetarians. They feast on cereals, sedges, lichens, mosses and berries. When there are a lot of berries, the bear does not eat any other food for weeks, gorging on them to the point that his face and butt turn blue with blueberries. However, the longer the bears starve, forced to prematurely move to land from the melting ice as a result of warming, the more often they go in search of food to people who have been actively exploring the Arctic in recent decades.

The question of whether an encounter with a polar bear is dangerous for a person is difficult to answer unequivocally. Sometimes bears attacked people out of curiosity, quickly realizing that they were easy prey. But most often, tragic incidents happen at campsites, where bears are attracted by the smell of food. Usually the bear goes straight to the smell, crushing everything in its path. The situation is complicated by the fact that the animal, in search of food, tears into pieces and tastes everything it comes across, including people who turn up by chance.

It should be noted that bears, unlike wolves, tigers and other dangerous predators, have virtually no facial muscles. They never warn of impending aggression. By the way, circus trainers claim that because of this feature, it is most dangerous to work with bears - it is almost impossible to predict what to expect from them in the next moment.

Now, thanks to the efforts of Greenpeace, they try not to kill bears that wander into the city in search of food, resorting to temporarily tranquilizing shots from a special gun. The sleeping animal is weighed, measured and recorded. A colored tattoo is applied to the inside of the lip - a number that remains for the entire bear's life. Females, in addition, receive a collar with a miniature radio beacon as a gift from zoologists. The euthanized bears are then transported by helicopter back to the ice so that they can continue living a full life in their natural habitat. Moreover, females with cubs are transported first.

Females produce offspring every three years. Thanks to natural selection, the pregnancy process was miraculously synchronized with the period of hibernation. In October or November, pregnant mother bears leave the sea ice and head to nearby land in search of a den site where they raise their young during the long polar night. Having reached land, the bear searches for a suitable place for a long time until she chooses a depression or cave in a snowdrift of old snow. Gradually, snowstorms sweep the den and leave traces that reveal its location. After a few months, tiny bear cubs no larger than a rat appear inside the snow den. Newborn bears, burrowing into their mother's fur, immediately look for nipples and begin to suck. A baby bear's claws are curved and sharp - this helps him hold on to the soft fur on the mother bear's belly.

Meanwhile, the female is starving and her weight drops by almost half. But she will only be able to go hunting when her children grow up and gain strength. Cubs need time to get used to arctic temperatures after several months of living in a den warm from their mother's body. After 2-3 months, the weight of the cubs increases 4-5 times, and the family begins to take short walks in the immediate vicinity of the home. The mother bear introduces the cubs to a new environment for them, teaches them hunting skills and shows amazing patience with the cubs' frisky games and curiosity. The mother bear's care for her cubs does not stop until they become independent.

Fathers, as often happens in nature, do not take the slightest part in the fate of their offspring, shifting all worries about feeding the cubs onto the shoulders of the bear. However, food is not the only problem facing a female with cubs. The real threat comes from adult males who compete with each other for the possession of a female. Given the chance, a large male could easily kill her cubs. The female will then go into heat again and he can mate with her to ensure that the next generation will inherit his genes. Therefore, females are very vigilant and do not let their cubs go far from them.

The population of polar bears, which was on the verge of extinction in the 60s, is gradually recovering thanks to the work of nature conservation societies. And now about 20,000 polar bears roam the polar region, the true masters of snow fields and Arctic ice.

Conservation status: Least endangered species.
Listed in the IUCN Red List

Few animals capture the human imagination as much as the brown bear. They are priority inhabitants of the animal world, which are so necessary to preserve. Given their dependence on large territorial areas, brown bears are an important part of the control of a number of other animals.

The brown bear is one of the largest predators among animals. On average, adult males are 8-10% larger than females, but sizes vary depending on the species' habitat. Brown bears feed in the morning and evening, and during the daytime they prefer to rest under dense vegetation. Depending on the time of year, brown bears can travel hundreds of kilometers to search for food.

Hibernation

Hibernation lasts from October-December to March-May. In some southern regions, the duration of hibernation is very short or completely absent. The brown bear chooses a place for itself, for example, a hole, which is located on a protected slope under a large stone or among the roots of a large tree. The same hibernation sites can be used for many years.

Dimensions

The brown bear, not the largest among the bear family, takes the lead. However, this species can reach enormous sizes - males weigh about 350-450 kilograms, and females average 200 kilograms. There are individuals whose mass exceeds half a ton.

Color

Although the coat is usually dark brown, other colors are also found - from cream to almost black. Color depends on habitat. In the Rocky Mountains (USA), brown bears have long hair on their shoulders and back.

Habitats

Brown bears live in a variety of habitats from the edges of deserts to high mountain forests and ice fields. In Europe, brown bears are found in mountain forests, in Siberia their main habitat is forests, and in North America they prefer alpine meadows and coasts. The main requirement for this species is the presence of dense vegetation in which a brown bear can find shelter during the daytime.

Life cycle

Newborn bears are vulnerable because they are born blind, without hair, and weighing only 340-680 grams. The cubs grow very quickly and reach 25 kilograms at 6 months. The lactation period lasts 18-30 months. The cubs usually remain with their mother until their third or fourth year of life. Despite the fact that sexual maturity occurs at 4-6 years, the brown bear continues to grow and develop until 10-11 years. In the wild they can live from 20 to 30 years, but despite this life expectancy, most die at an early age.

Reproduction

Mating in brown bears occurs in the warm months (May-July). Pregnancy lasts 180-266 days, and the birth of cubs occurs in January-March; as a rule, at this time the females are in hibernation. Usually 2-3 cubs are born from one female. The next offspring can be expected in 2-4 years.

Nutrition

Brown bears are omnivores, and their diet varies depending on the time of year - from grass in the spring, berries and apples in the summer, to nuts and plums in the fall. Throughout the year, they feed on roots, insects, mammals (including moose and wapiti from the Canadian Rockies), reptiles and, of course, honey. In Alaska, during the summer, bears feed on salmon going to spawn.

Population and distribution

The total population of brown bears on the planet is about 200,000 individuals, with Russia home to the largest number - close to 100,000 individuals.

Scientists believe that 8,000 brown bears live in Western Europe (Slovakia, Poland, Ukraine, Romania). There are also suggestions that the species can be found in Palestine, Eastern Siberia and the Himalayan regions. Possible habitats are considered to be the Atlas Mountains in northwestern Africa and the island of Hokkaido, located in Japan.

Brown bears are still quite common in the mountainous regions of western Canada and Alaska, where their numbers can reach 30,000 individuals. There are fewer than 1,000 brown bears left in other parts of the United States.

Historical distribution

Previously, the brown bear was distributed throughout Northern and Central Europe, Asia, the Atlas Mountains of Morocco and Algeria, and the western part of North America south to Mexico. Before the arrival of European settlers, the species lived on the Great Plains of North America. Populations from the Sierra Nevada and southern Rocky Mountains were extirpated, and those remaining in northern Mexico died in the 1960s. In the early 1900s, there were approximately 100,000 individuals in the United States.

Main threats

Brown bears are hunted as large hunting trophies, as well as for meat and skins. Bear gall bladders have a high value in the Asian market, as they are popularly believed to have aphrodisiac properties. The value of the beneficial properties of products obtained from bear body parts does not have medical support, but the demand for them is growing every year.

Other major threats include habitat destruction and persecution. These problems affect the brown bear population to varying degrees, but extend across the entire habitat.

For example, currently, brown bears can be found in only 2% of the previously inhabited territory. Forestry, mining, road construction, and other human activities have contributed to the decline in bear numbers due to the destruction of natural habitat.

In some countries, human-bear conflict occurs, which creates a number of problems, especially in areas where the brown bear encounters livestock, gardens, water supplies and garbage cans.

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