Habitat of the brown bear on the map. How much does a bear weigh on average? Which bear is the biggest? Who is bigger - a brown bear or a polar bear? Brown bear video

There is a legend in America that bears walk on the roads in Russia. We can agree with this opinion, since in some regions of Russia you can still find a bear wandering into the streets of the city. However, this happens less and less often, there are fewer and fewer bears, and they are also afraid of people and avoid their habitats.

Currently this symbol of Russia is under protection, as its population has decreased significantly and is in danger of extinction.

Where do brown bears live?

Brown bears They are the most common in the vast expanses of Russia; it is not without reason that they are its symbol. However, the territory of Russia is not the only habitat of these beautiful powerful animals. Brown bears are also common in the vastness of Alaska and Canada, in Europe (mountainous regions), and are found in Japan and Asian countries.

Most major representatives This species lives in Kamchatka and Alaska. The weight of an adult male in those areas often reaches more than 700 kilograms, and sometimes exceeds 1000 kilograms.

The smallest representatives of the bear family live in the European part of the Earth, weighing up to 500 kilograms; in Russia there are average specimens weighing about 600 kilograms.

Height of an adult bear if he stands on hind legs, sometimes reaches 3 meters, the height at the withers is on average from a meter to one and a half. Males are usually twice the size and weight of females.

The color of a brown bear depends on its habitat and has many shades from golden to silver or black.
Bears prefer to settle in forest thickets, going out into more open areas in search of food.

Dietary features of the brown bear

The bear is not a whimsical animal; to put it simply, it is an omnivore. Most often, the bear eats plant foods: herbs, roots, berries, nuts, and cereals. Bears do not hesitate to feast on insects, larvae or ants; small rodents can also become prey for the owners of the taiga.

In the spring, during the spawning period, you can often see fishing bears. It is extremely rare for bears to hunt larger animals, various representatives of artiodactyls, wolves, and livestock. This happens in hungry years, when it is difficult to find other food.

Features of brown bear reproduction

Bears are essentially solitary animals; bears do not live together. After the mating season, the females take care of the cubs, while the males live their own lives. Mating season for bears it lasts from May to June, accompanied by fierce battles between rivals in the fight for the female. Often one of the males dies, and the winner eats him.

The female usually mates with several males; pregnancy develops after the female goes into hibernation; gestation lasts six to eight months. Bear cubs are born in a den, in the amount of two or three cubs.

At first, the cubs do not see or hear anything, after about 14 days hearing appears and after a month the cubs begin to see. Three months after birth, the babies begin to leave the den. The mother bear feeds her cubs with milk until they reach the age of 1.5-2 years. Bear cubs can live next to their mother for up to four years.

A female bear gives birth approximately once every two years, sometimes once every four years.

Lifespan of a brown bear

Average life expectancy of a brown bear in wildlife reaches 25-35 years, in captivity it happened that bears lived for 50 years.

In general, life expectancy depends on the conditions and habitat of the animal.

Den selection and hibernation

The bear is careful when choosing a place for a den. The place should be quiet, calm, safe. The den is dry, warm, cozy. The bear carefully lines the floor of the den with moss. From the outside it camouflages the home with dry branches. Having found a good den, the bear does not change it for many years.

In preparation for hibernation, the bear carefully confuses its tracks, even to the point of walking backwards. Hibernation lasts from October to April. It is very easy to wake up a hibernating bear, as they continue to remain sensitive, even during sleep. During hibernation, the animal's body temperature decreases, which allows it to preserve energy reserves for a long time. After hibernation, the animal’s weight decreases by 70-80 kilograms.

If the year was hungry, and the bear did not have enough supplies for the entire hibernation period, he may wake up ahead of time and go in search of food. Such bears are called connecting rods. Also, a bear, disturbed in its bedroom, may wake up to look for a new, safer den.

Video about a brown bear

A well-known animal distributed almost everywhere northern hemisphere, a symbol of power, strength, hero of many fairy tales and legends.

Taxonomy

Latin name– Ursus arctos

English name– Brown bear

Order – Carnivora (Carnivora)

Family – Bears (Ursidae)

Genus – bears (Ursus)

Status of the species in nature

The brown bear is currently not in danger of extinction, with the exception of some subspecies living in Western Europe and in southern North America. In these places, animals are protected by law. Where the animal is numerous, limited hunting is allowed.

Species and man

The bear has occupied people's imaginations for a long time. Because of the way it often rises on its hind legs, the bear is more like a human than any other animal. “Master of the forest” is how he is usually called. The bear is a character in many fairy tales; there are many sayings and proverbs about it. In them, this beast most often appears as a good-natured bumpkin, a slightly stupid strongman, ready to protect the weak. The respectful and condescending attitude towards this beast is evident from folk names: “Mikhailo Potapych”, “Toptygin”, “clubfooted”... Comparing a person himself with a bear can be either flattering for him (“strong like a bear”) or derogatory (“clumsy like a bear”).

The bear is very common as a coat of arms; it is a symbol of strength, cunning and ferocity in defending the fatherland. Therefore, he is depicted on the coats of arms of many cities: Perm, Berlin, Bern, Yekaterinburg, Novgorod, Norilsk, Syktyvkar, Khabarovsk, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Yaroslavl and others.

Distribution area and habitats

The distribution area of ​​the brown bear is very vast, covering the entire forest and forest-tundra zones of Eurasia and North America, in the north it extends to the forest border, in the south along the mountainous regions it reaches Asia Minor and Western Asia, Tibet, and Korea. Currently, the range of the species, once continuous, has been significantly reduced to more or less large fragments. The beast disappeared in the Japanese Islands, in the Atlas Mountains in northwest Africa, in most of the Iranian Plateau, in the vast Central Plain in North America. In Western and Central Europe, this species remains only in small mountainous areas. On the territory of Russia, the distribution area has changed to a lesser extent; the animal is still quite common in the forests of Siberia and Far East, in the Russian North.

Brown bear- a typical forest dweller. Most often it is found in vast taiga tracts, replete with windbreaks, moss swamps and dissected by rivers, and in the mountains by gorges. The animal gives preference to forests with dark coniferous species - spruce, fir, cedar. In the mountains he lives among deciduous forests, or in juniper forests.

Appearance and morphology

The brown bear is a very large, massive animal, one of the largest land predators. Within the family, the brown bear is second in size only to the white one. The largest of the brown bears live in Alaska, they are called Kodiaks, the body length of Kodiaks reaches 250 cm, height at the withers 130 cm, weight up to 750 kg. The bears living in Kamchatka are only slightly inferior in size to them. In central Russia, the weight of “typical” bears is 250-300 kg.

The brown bear is generally proportionally built; its massive appearance is given by its thick fur and slow movements. The head of this animal is heavy, forehead-shaped, and not as elongated as the white one. The lips, like the nose, are black, the eyes are small and deep-set. The tail is very short, completely hidden in fur. The claws are long, up to 10 cm, especially on the front paws, but slightly curved. The fur is very thick and long, especially in animals living in the northern part of the range. The color is usually brown, but in different animals it can vary from almost black to straw yellow.

Of the sense organs, the brown bear has the best developed sense of smell, hearing is weaker, and vision is poor, so the animal is almost not guided by it.

Lifestyle and social organization

Brown bears, unlike white ones, are mostly sedentary. EveryAn 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.

In permanent habitats of bears, their regular movements around the area are marked by clearly visible paths. They are similar to human paths, only unlike them, along bear paths there are often scraps of bear fur hanging on the branches, and on the trunks of particularly noticeable trees there are bear marks - bites with teeth and bark torn off by claws at the height that the animal can reach. Such marks show other bears that the area is occupied. The trails connect places where the bear is guaranteed to find food. Bears lay them along the most convenient places, choosing the shortest distance between objects that are significant to oneself.

A sedentary lifestyle does not prevent the bear from making seasonal migrations to places where this moment food is more accessible. In lean years, a bear can travel 200-300 km in search of food. In the flat taiga, for example, animals spend the summer in clearings overgrown with tall grass, early autumn are drawn to swamps, where they are attracted by ripe cranberries. In the mountainous regions of Siberia, at the same time they move to the char zone, where they find an abundance of dwarf pine nuts and lingonberries. On the Pacific Coast during mass move red fish, animals from afar come to the mouths of rivers.

A characteristic feature of the brown bear, common to both males and females, is winter sleep in a den. Dens are located in the most secluded places: on small islands among moss swamps, among windbreaks or dense small forests. Bears most often arrange them under inversions and logs, under the roots of large cedars and spruce trees. In mountainous areas, earthen dens predominate, which are located in rock crevices, shallow caves, and recesses under stones. 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. Where there are few suitable places for wintering, dens used for many years in a row form real “bear towns”: for example, in Altai, 26 dens were found in a 10 km long section.

In different places, bears sleep in winter from 2.5 to 6 months. In warm regions, when there is an abundant harvest of nuts, bears do not lie down in a den all winter, but only from time to time when unfavorable conditions They fall asleep for several days. Bears sleep alone, only females who have young yearlings sleep together with their cubs. During sleep, if the animal is disturbed, it easily awakens. Often the bear itself leaves the den during prolonged thaws, returning to it at the slightest cold snap.

Nutrition and feeding behavior

The brown bear is a true omnivore, eating more plant food than animal food. It is most difficult for a bear to feed itself in early spring, when plant food is completely insufficient. At this time of year, he hunts large ungulates and eats carrion. Then he digs up anthills, getting larvae and the ants themselves. From the beginning of the appearance of greenery until the mass ripening of various berries, the bear spends most of its time fattening on “bear pastures” - forest clearings and meadows, eating umbelliferous plants (hogweed, angelica), sow thistle, and wild garlic. From the second half of summer, when the berries begin to ripen, throughout the forest zone bears switch to feeding on them: first blueberries, raspberries, blueberries, honeysuckle, later lingonberries, cranberries. The autumn period, the most important for preparing for winter, is the time of eating tree fruits. In the middle zone these are acorns, hazelnuts, in the taiga - pine nut, in the mountains southern forests– wild apples, pears, cherries, mulberries. The bear's favorite food in early autumn is ripening oats.

Eating grass in a meadow, the bear peacefully “grazes” for hours, like a cow or horse, or collects the stems it likes with its front paws and puts them in its mouth. Climbing fruit-bearing trees, this sweet tooth breaks off branches, eating the fruits on the spot, or throws them down, sometimes simply shaking the crown. 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 along rivers along the Pacific coast are avid fishermen. During the course of the red fish, they gather in dozens near the rifts. While fishing, the bear goes belly-deep into the water and with a strong, quick blow of its front paw, throws a fish that has swam close to the shore.

The bear hides large ungulates - deer, elk - completely silently approaching the victim from the leeward side. Roe deer sometimes lie in wait along trails or at watering holes. His attack is swift and almost irresistible.

Reproduction and raising of offspring

The mating season for bears begins in May-June. At this time, the males chase the females, roar, and fight fiercely, sometimes with fatal results. At this time they are aggressive and dangerous. The formed pair walks together for about a month, and if a new contender appears, not only the male, but also the female drives him away.

The cubs (usually 2) are born in the den in January, weighing only about 500 g, covered with sparse fur, with their eyes and ears closed. The cubs' ear openings appear by the end of the second week, and after another 2 weeks the eyes open. Throughout their first 2 months of life, they lie next to their mother, moving very little. The bear's sleep is not deep, since she needs to care for her cubs. By the time they leave the den, the cubs reach the size of a small dog, weighing from 3 to 7 kg. Milk feeding lasts up to six months, but already at 3 months of age young animals begin to gradually master plant foods, imitating their mother.

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.

Keeping animals at the Moscow Zoo

Brown bears have been kept in the zoo since its founding - 1864. Until recently, they lived on the “Island of Animals” (New Territory) and in the Children's Zoo. In the early 90s, the governor of the Primorsky Territory brought the bear from the children's zoo as a gift to the first President of Russia B.N. Yeltsin. The President wisely did not keep “this little animal” at home, but transferred it to the zoo. When the first reconstruction was underway, the bear temporarily left Moscow, stayed in another zoo, and then returned. Now the second reconstruction is underway, and the bear has again left Moscow, this time to the Veliky Ustyug Zoo, where he will live permanently.

Currently, the zoo has one brown bear, which lives on the “Island of Animals”. This is an elderly female of the Kamchatka subspecies, classic brown in color, very large. All winter she sleeps soundly in her den, despite the noisy life of the metropolis. People help set up the winter “apartment”: the bottom of the “den” is lined with coniferous branches, on top - a feather bed made of hay. Before they fall asleep, bears both in nature and in the zoo eat pine needles - a bactericidal plug is formed in the intestines. It is not noise that can awaken the animals, but long-term warming, as happened in the winter of 2006-2007.

Brown bears tolerate conditions of captivity well, but, of course, they get bored, because in nature they spend most of their time searching and getting food, which is not something they have to do in a zoo. Mandatory attributes in a bear enclosure are tree trunks. The bears tear at them with their claws, leaving their marks, try to look for food under the bark and in the wood, and finally play with logs small size. And out of boredom, bears begin to interact with visitors. For example, our bear sits on her hind legs and starts waving at people with her front legs. Everyone around is happy and throws a wide variety of objects into her enclosure, most often food. Some of the abandoned food is eaten, some are simply sniffed - the animal is full. Scientists believe that in this way the bear is not just begging for food or making its environment more diverse, it begins to control the behavior of visitors: if he waved, he was given something tasty. This relieves the stress of being kept in a small enclosure and living according to a certain routine. But still There is no need to feed the animals in the zoo - their diets are balanced, and much of what we eat is harmful to them.

Very often in the spring and first half of summer, phone calls are heard at the zoo - people want to give birth to cubs found in the forest. We urge everyone who sees a bear cub in the forest - do not take it! The mother is most likely somewhere nearby, she can come to the defense of her cub, and this is very dangerous for you! The baby could have been driven away by an adult male caring for the bear, but you never know what reasons other than the death of the bear could have brought the cub to people. A bear that comes into contact with a person is doomed to be killed or spend its life in captivity. A bear cub left alone in the forest at the age of 5-6 months (July-August) has a very good chance of surviving and living free. Don't deprive him of this chance!

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 due to the fact that 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 average weight bears - 300-400 kg, and length 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 (live 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 natural conditions, often represent a completely different interest for a person. Man has been hunting bears for a long time. The meat is used for food, the skin is used for making carpets, gallbladder 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.

A bear is one of the animals that you would hardly want to meet one on one. Its dimensions inspire genuine fear. Surprisingly, at birth some bears weigh less than 200 grams, and this inevitably raises the question of how much an adult bear weighs. It all depends on its type and individual characteristics. The most famous bears are: brown, black, white. Since the brown bear lives in our country, we will dwell on it in more detail.

Distribution area

Previously, the brown bear was found throughout almost all of Europe, including Ireland and England. The southern border of the range was the African Atlas Mountains, and in the east, bears were found even in the territory of modern Japan. It most likely entered North America approximately 40 thousand years ago. Then it settled in territories from Alaska to the northern borders of Mexico. Today, the brown bear is widespread in Finland (in this country it was even declared the national animal) and Scandinavia, and is less common in the center of Europe and the Carpathians. In addition, it also lives in Iranian and Iraqi forests, northern China, Palestine, the Korean Peninsula and the Japanese island of Hokkaido. In North America, the brown bear is called the “grizzly” and is more often found in western Canada and Alaska. In Russia, the brown bear lives in almost all forests of the country, except for the southern regions.

Appearance

The animal is strong, with distinct withers on the back. The body cover is thick. The coat color is uniform. As a rule, bears shed their coats in the spring, and their coats are renewed in the fall. The ears are small, the eyes are set deep. The tail is practically invisible under the fur and is only 2 cm long. The paws are quite strong, with curved claws (their length can reach 10 cm).

Weight of a brown bear and its dimensions

The average body length of a brown bear is 1-2 meters. recorded in Kamchatka, the Far East and Alaska. These are real giants: their height in a standing position reaches three meters. In addition to height, many are interested in how much a bear weighs. Body weight depends on the sex and age of the animal. As a rule, the male is larger than the female. The weight of an adult bear (male) is 140-400 kg. But among them there are giant individuals weighing up to 600 kg. The female weighs on average 90-210 kg. A bear with a record body weight was discovered on Kodiak Island. His weight was 1134 kg and his height was about 4 meters. Many people are interested in how much someone living in Russia weighs? In our country there are smaller individuals, their body weight on average is 100 kg. How much does a grizzly bear weigh that lives in America? The grizzly bear is a subspecies of the brown bear; its body weight can reach 500 kg. Individual individuals can weigh 700 kg.

Lifespan

How much does a bear weigh and how long does it live - these are probably the most frequently asked questions. Note that the animal directly depends on its habitat. In the wild it can live 20-35 years. If an animal is kept in a zoo or nature reserve, then it lives twice as long - about 50 years, or even more. Puberty occurs at 6-11 years of age.

Behavior

The brown bear has a developed sense of smell. He can smell meat well even from a great distance. The bear has perfectly developed hearing. He often stands on his hind legs to catch the direction of the flow of smell or listen to a sound that interests him. In the forest he behaves like a real owner: he walks around his property in the early morning or after dusk. In bad weather, it can wander through the forests for hours in search of food.

Lifestyle and nutritional habits

The brown bear is considered a forest animal. In Russia, its favorite places are dense forests with bushes and deciduous trees. Can enter the territory of the tundra and alpine forests. In Europe, it most often lives in the mountains, and in North America, its favorite habitats are alpine meadows, tundra and the coast. The male usually lives alone, and the female with cubs. Each individual occupies a certain territory from 70 to 400 km, while the male requires 7 times more area than the female. Of course, this does not depend on how much the bear weighs. It’s just that a female more often lives with cubs, and it is more difficult for her to travel long distances than for a single male. Bears mark the boundaries of their territory with urine and scratches on trees.

Animals are omnivores. The diet consists of 75% plant foods - these are berries, tubers, grass stems, nuts, roots and acorns. In lean years they can feed on corn and oat fields. The clubfoot's diet may consist of ants, worms, and small rodents (mice, chipmunks, gophers). Although a bear is not a 100% predator, it can kill an elk or a roe deer. It is not uncommon for grizzlies to attack wolves, and in the Far East, bears sometimes hunt tigers. Honey is considered the favorite delicacy of this animal (that’s why it was called that). Fish is a seasonal object of hunting. At the beginning of spawning, when there are still few fish, the bear eats the entire carcass, but when there is a lot of it, it eats only the fat-rich parts (head, milt and caviar). In hungry years, a bear can hunt domestic animals and often visits apiaries, ruining them.

Brown bear activity occurs in the morning and evening hours. Lifestyle is seasonal. When it gets cold, the bear builds up a subcutaneous layer of fat and lies down in a den to hibernate. At the same time, the average weight of a bear increases by 20%. A den is a dry place under windbreaks or uprooted tree rhizomes. On average, winter sleep lasts about 70-190 days and depends on the climate (October-March, November-April). It turns out that the clubfoot hibernates for about six months. Female bears spend the longest time in hibernation, while older males spend the longest hibernation. It is also interesting to know how much a brown bear weighs after winter sleep. During this time they can lose about 80 kg of weight. If a bear has not managed to accumulate a sufficient amount of fat over the summer and autumn, in winter it awakens and begins to wander through the forest in search of food. Such bears are usually called connecting rods. The connecting rods are dangerous and hungry, so they attack everyone, even humans. Most often, they rarely survive until the end of winter: they die from frost, severe hunger, or from a hunter’s bullet.

Despite the fact that the brown bear's weight is impressive and it looks somewhat clumsy, it runs quite fast, swims well and climbs trees well. The paw strike is so powerful that it can break the back of a large bison or bull.

Reproduction

The female bears offspring once every 2-4 years. Estrus occurs at the end of spring - beginning of summer, lasting only 2-4 weeks. During the breeding season, males often fight among themselves, sometimes with fatal results. occurs with several males, the pregnancy is latent, and embryo development will begin only in November. Pregnancy lasts from 6 to 8 months, the birth itself occurs at the place of hibernation - in the den. There are up to 5 cubs in one litter. I wonder how much a bear weighs at birth if it later reaches that size? Cubs weigh 340-680 grams at birth, their length is 25 cm. They are born completely blind and deaf, with almost no hair. Hearing appears only 14 days after birth, and they become sighted after a month. By 3 months they have baby teeth and can eat berries. The mother bear feeds the cubs with milk for up to 30 months. As a rule, the father does not take part in raising the offspring; on the contrary, he may eat the bear cub because he sees it as a potential rival. Cubs begin to live independently without their mother at about 3-4 years of age.

Security

The brown bear is listed in the Red Book. This animal is vulnerable due to the high mortality rate of young animals and slow reproduction. But recently the population has been growing. According to some data, there are about 200 thousand individuals in the world, 120,000 of which live in Russia, 14,000 in Europe, 32,500 in the USA (most of them in Alaska), 21,500 in Canada. Bear hunting in many countries is limited or completely prohibited.

Brown bears choose places for permanent residence in direct proportion to the abundance of food in the area and how often the area is visited by people. The placement of bears during the active (not denning) period of life shares some common features. First, none of the habitats are used throughout the active period. Mountain regions are characterized by migrations of bears along altitudinal zones, depending on the time of year, and the southern slopes are much more attractive for animals than the northern ones. Bears prefer river valleys and the higher the preference, the poorer the vegetation of the area. Brown bears do not like plains and places frequented by people. In autumn, animals tend to areas richer in fattening food.Only a very large harvest of berries can attract brown bears totundra and forest-tundra zones in the European part of the country. In forests European partSpruce and fir forests and large mixed coniferous-deciduous forests are attractive to animals. The southern regions attract forest owners with broad-leaved and dark-coniferous-broad-leaved forests; they are not so interested in small-leaved forests.Forests rich in undergrowth and shrubs are most suitable for bears. Open places (pine forests - moss moss, pure birch and aspen forests) can only interest them in a large harvest of berries. Young, closed forests are chosen by the animal for lying down, but not for feeding.Attractive to floodplain forest owners forest rivers, streams and lake shores, rich in lush herbaceous vegetation, berry bushes, etc. There the bears spend spring-summer period. They avoid clearings and burnt areas, but are interested in young growth. Fields sown with oats, peas or perennial grasses that are far from populated areas are a great treat for brown bears.

Caucasian brown bears live mainly in the mountain forest belt, most often in chestnut, chestnut-oak and oak forests. In late spring, most of the animals rise to a height of up to one and a half thousand meters, in search of the corpses of aurochs killed in avalanches. In beech forests, bears feed on melted beech nuts, and this keeps the animals on the edge of the snow melt. In summer, most of the animals remain in the highlands, but some of them descend into the lowland forests, feeding on the ripe fruits of the fruit trees. In September, all the animals again concentrate in beech, chestnut and oak forests.

In Altai Bears live most densely in the tall grass black taiga, dark coniferous cedar forests and in the alpine highlands. Bears avoid food-poor and poorly protected pine and mixed forests in the north and north-west of Altai. With the beginning of summer, the animals move to the subalpine forest, where they remain until autumn. The southeastern part of Altai is distinguished by unusual living conditions for bears: the area is devoid of not only forests, but also shrubs, and the grass cover is heavily destroyed by livestock. And here the vegetarian diet of bears gives way to animal food. They hunt marmots, gophers, pikas and pick up dead domestic animals.

In Western and Central Siberia, bears stay in taiga forests rich in cedar. Such forests are especially attractive to them in the fall, during the period of ripening and falling of nuts. Floodplain spruce-fir forests are less interesting for animals; here interest depends on the berry harvest. And the rare ones are completely unattractive: larch, spruce and pine forests located on watersheds.

In the Baikal region in the spring, animals often stick to the steppe slopes of mountains and meadows of the forest belt; in the spring-summer period they are attracted to the banks, and with the arrival of summer, bears are drawn to places abounding in succulent grassy food - floodplain forests, swamps, banks of rivers and lakes, overgrown burnt areas, clearings and silkworms. In late summer, when the berries are ripening, bears go into coniferous forests– blueberries, blueberries and lingonberries. In autumn, the bear population concentrates closer to dwarf dwarf thickets and pine trees.

For Yakutia, the concentration of bears is typical in river valleys and floodplains, only occasionally do animals enter the tundra to visit berry fields. Animals are most densely collected in the growing zone of Siberian cedar and dwarf cedar. In northern larch forests the animal is few in number, and in mountain tundras and rocky deserts it is not found at all. In spring, bears gravitate towards warm, heated pine manes with lingonberries, the southern slopes of river valleys and the tops of hills covered with dwarf cedar. As soon as new grass appears, they move to the floodplains of the rivers. Later, ripe blueberries lure them from there into the larch forests. To the south, where larch-pine-cedar forests and cedar trees grow, bears give preference to them.

For Khabarovsk Territory, Primorye and the south of the Amur region are characterized by the habitat of bears in cedar-broad-leaved forests. In the central and northern regions of the Amur region, animals are attracted by dwarf cedar trees that occupy the upper belt of the mountains. In the spring, bears go to the sea coast and to the foothills of the mountains, and as the snow melts, they move to cedar trees and places rich in succulent trees. herbaceous plants. Midsummer finds animals in berry fields and in the valleys of spawning rivers. And autumn beckons with an undergrowth of dwarf cedar in cedar-deciduous and deciduous forests.

In the tundra zone of Chukotka, bears concentrate in mountain river valleys, overgrown with willow and alder bushes, they are interested in slopes with meadow vegetation, dry thickets of dwarf birch and berry fields. In the forest and forest-tundra, animals accumulate in floodplains large rivers, overgrown with currants, rose hips and horsetail; larch woodlands, willows, poplar-chozenia forests and thickets of dwarf cedar. But most of all, the coasts of the Okhotsk and Bering Seas are attractive to brown bears. On the contrary, they do not come to the coast of the Chukchi Sea and the Chukotka Peninsula at all. Bears just as strongly dislike open, flat lichen areas, waterlogged areas overgrown with sedges and sparse willows.

Kamchatka is characterized by the concentration of some bears on sea ​​coast . The remaining animals live in the belt of cedar and alder dwarf trees and in the mountain tundra. As soon as fish begin to flow along the rivers, bears move to floodplain forests and spawning reservoirs. If the fish are not going well, then the ripe berries lure animals into the coniferous spruce-larch forests. The lowland tundra, although rich in berries, remains unattractive to those who avoid open space animals.

On Sakhalin, bears live in spruce-fir and larch forests, in clearings and burnt areas overgrown with reed grass and bamboo.

Kuril ridge. On the island of Paramushir, bears are found in places overgrown with cedar-alder dwarf and rhododendron. Animals are interested in bamboo forests and thickets of cedar and alder on Iturup Island. On Kunashir Island they are attracted by stone-birch, bamboo and spruce-fir forests, cedar and alder dwarf trees.