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Post by brobear on Jan 12, 2023 8:09:23 GMT -5
This topic is all about the bears of Russia, their daily activities, and how they react to other wildlife. Types of Russian Bear: Which types of bears live in Russia? Common: So numerous are the Eurasian Brown Bears in Siberia’s forests that they are simply referred to as “the common bear”. Plain, ol’ brown bears, they certainly aren’t however; they have the largest brains out of all terrestrial carnivores and, until the 20thcentury, could often be seen strolling round the streets of Russia playing musical instruments or smoking pipes with their trainers. Giant: Thanks to the bountiful streams of Russia’s Far East, the Kamchatka Bears are some of the world’s largest. Weighing up to 700kg, they can reach double the size of an average Brown Bear. Pitch-Black: On the borders of China and Russia roams a mythical bear. In the past, tribes used to worship it and to this day, Ussuri Bears have a close connection with humans—in the literal, not spiritual sense. Snowy-White: Polar Bears were all over the Russian news in 2019 when over 50 of them invaded a Russian village. Generally, however, they are furtive creatures with very little known about them. Since the 16th century the bear has been the ultimate symbol of Russia. Representing both the good—strength, power and sheer might—and the bad—ferocity and club-footedness—it’s perhaps the only accurate likeness of the enigma that is Russia. Over the years it’s played many roles in Russian society; from an all-wise spirit god to be worshipped to a first-class fool, forced to drink wine and wear babushka scarves, to a symbol of wealth, ruthlessly hunted for its pelt, paws and organs. Though the accounts of early medieval European travelers (which sparked the myth that Russia was a country overrun with bears) may not have been wholly true, there is truth in the fact that the bear is an integral part of Russian culture. *pictured: Ussuri black bear / Amur tiger / Ussuri brown bear.
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Post by brobear on Jan 12, 2023 8:14:56 GMT -5
A bear’s a bear...or is it? It’s ironic that one of the biggest and clumsiest animals is actually one of the most mysterious animals known to man. To this day, scientists dispute the number of species of bear on this planet. In Russia, the most conservative classifications restrict the number of native species and subspecies to just four: the Eurasian Brown Bear, the Kamchatka Brown Bear, the Ussuri Brown Bear and the Russian Polar Bear. Excepting the polar bear, the other bears are all subspecies of brown bear and - as their names suggest - their main distinguishing feature is the region which they hail from. Eurasian brown bear: The Eurasian brown bear is the most populous of all the species. Though they can be found as south as Northern Iran and as north as the nether regions of western-Russia, the bulk of the population is concentrated east of the Ural Mountains, in the dense Siberian forests. So numerous are these brown bears in Siberia that they are simply referred to as the “common bear”. Despite their reputation, brown bears get less of their calories from meat than most people. Only 10-15% of a brown bear’s diet consists of prey, with the rest consisting of a colourful medley of berries, grasses, insects and anything else they can get their paws on. Bears are infamous food pinchers; their voracious appetites have led them into all sorts of trouble. Many campers and rangers have learned the necessity of locking up food the hard way but, even then, a padlocked cooler is child’s play for a hungry bear. Thanks to their long, tough claws, brown bears are the only bear capable ofdigging up starchy foods such as tubers, and they’ve been seen digging up entire beaches in search of crabs and clams! But though the majority of Brown Bears are about as innocuous as a hungry Labrador, there are a few individuals who deserve their fearsome reputation. These bears were taught by their mothers to charge at large mammals, such as elk and even young wolves, and tear them to bits while still alive.
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Post by brobear on Jan 12, 2023 8:17:03 GMT -5
Kamchatka bear: The Kamchatka Peninsula is about as far east as you can get in Russia. This land of windswept tundra, rising volcanoes and frozen beaches is closer to Alaska than to Moscow. The bears over here too are closer to their gargantuan Grizzly kin across the sea than to the comparatively cuddly Brown Bears in Europe. Side by side, the Kamchatka bear is more than 1,5 times as heavy as a Eurasian Brown bear. Ice-cold streams brimming with a unique type of wild, blood-red salmon mean that Kamchatka bears can reach up to 650kg, making them by far the largest brown bear in Eurasia. Only the Kodiak bear in Alaska exceeds the Kamchatka bear in weight.
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Post by brobear on Jan 12, 2023 8:21:58 GMT -5
Ussuri Brown Bear The Ussuri Brown Bear has always been close to the Russian people. In times gone by, it was worshipped as a deity. When an Ussuri bear came wandering into a village, as they often did in search of a tasty bite, the villagers would conduct a ceremonial killing. Everything, from the poor bear’s teeth to his blood and meat, were eaten, drunk or dried up to use as “medicine”. Though today the news may report of bears “terrorizing” villages, in those times, the villagers would save the pelt of the bear and pray to it in the hope that it might attract yet another bear into the village! More recently, female Ussuri bears and their cubs have repeatedly been discovered closely following local fishermen in the Shiretoko Peninsula, bordering China, where the Ussuri Bears are most densely populated. Companionship, not food, seems to be the mother bears’ only motive. Since the mother bears started coming closer to humans around fifty years ago not one instance of aggressive behaviour has ever been reported; and the Ussuri bears are almost as big as their close cousins, the Kamchatka giants! Zoologists theorize that the mothers seek humans so as to safe guard their cubs from cannibal males who wouldn’t dare to approach people.
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Post by brobear on Jan 12, 2023 8:22:57 GMT -5
Polar Bear The Polar Bear is perhaps the world’s most well know bear and is by far the world’s largest terrestrial carnivore, with some weighing more than a ton! Due to the fact, however, that the Arctic has yet to be thoroughly explored, little is known about these fluffy giants. What is known goes against all stereotypes. Although the polar bear is a sister species of the brown, they do not hibernate and fast, not during winter, but instead in late summer when the ice from which they hunt seals from has melted. Unlike brown bears, close-up selfies with wild polar bears can often be seen in the Russian Instagram sphere. The reckless Instagrammers know that unlike Brown Bears, satiated Polar Bears are unlikely to attack. However, when they are provoked Polar Bears have been known to devour humans, whereas Brown Bears tend to attack and flee. During the Cold War, the safeguarding of Polar Bears from hunting was just about the only thing the USSR and the USA could agree upon!
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Post by brobear on Jan 12, 2023 8:24:29 GMT -5
Grizzly bears vs Brown bears Just like the Kamchatka, Ussuri and Eurasian bears, Grizzlies are a subspecies of Brown Bear. Surprisingly, they’re actually one of the smaller of the Brown Bears and are in many ways an American equivalent of the Eurasian Brown Bears. Just like the Eurasian, they can be found in thick, inland forests and mostly subsist off vegetation and insects. They weigh roughly two times less than the coastal Kamchatka and Kodiak bears. The only major difference is the number of people they manage to kill each year. On average, two people lose their lives to bears each year in America, whereas in the whole of Scandinavia only three people have died in the last 100 years! This is even stranger when one considers that Russia has the largest Brown bear population in the world-- 120,000-- compared to North America which only has 50,000.
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Post by brobear on Jan 12, 2023 8:29:39 GMT -5
Russia is a real bear country! The largest number of these animals in the world live here! And there’s not just one species, but three. www.rbth.com/travel/334725-bear-species-russia Russians joke that there’s a simple way to find out what kind of bear is chasing you: if you run, climb a tree and the bear climbs next to you, it’s a black bear. If you run, climb a tree and a bear shakes it, it’s a brown bear. If you run, but there are NO trees, it’s most likely a polar bear. Bears live almost all over the country, from the Caucasus to the Arctic Ocean. According to the Ministry of Natural Resources of Russia, more than 286,000 animals were counted in 2020 in the country and their number is increasing every year. Most of them were found in the Far East (113,000) and the Russian North, such as Arkhangelsk (18,000) and Vologda (11,000) Regions.
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Post by brobear on Jan 12, 2023 8:31:34 GMT -5
Brown bears This is the most common species of bear in Russia and in the world. In total, about 200,000 brown bears live on the planet and more than half of them are in Russia. Many also live in the U.S. and Canada. Bears used to be found in Western Europe, but now they are rarely seen, except in the forests of Scandinavia, in the Alps, and the Carpathians in Eastern Europe.
Brown bears like dense forests and impassable thickets. This species also comes in different sizes. The smallest live in the Caucasus, while the largest live in the north. Like all wild animals, they do not like human’s company, preferring to live in their own world, but, from time to time, they come to people. As a rule, these are young animals that visit settlements and go along roads just because of curiosity, or in hungry periods, when they cannot find food in the forest. There are a lot of videos on social networks of cubs begging for food from drivers. Of course, people pity hungry animals, but it’s better not to give them candy! Some of the most aggressive animals are bears, which are often awakened during hibernation (in Russia, bear hibernation lasts from November to March).
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Post by brobear on Jan 12, 2023 8:33:02 GMT -5
Polar bears Where the tundra begins, brown bears are replaced by polar bears. In total, there are 25,000-30,000 polar bears in the world and about 5,000-7,000 of them live in Russia. Mostly near the Kara and Barents Seas (3,000-5,000), another 2,000 - near the Chukotka Sea and about 1,000 near the Laptev Sea. Scientists believe that these are three different populations.
The polar bear is the largest predator among mammals, which reaches a length of 2-3 meters and weighs up to 500-1,000 kilograms. Fortunately, they live on the islands of the Arctic Ocean and rarely go deep into the tundra, although, sometimes, they can be seen in the continental part of Russia, for example, in the north of Yamal, Chukotka and Yakutia.
This bear met polar explorers on Stolbovoy Island in the Laptev Sea in Yakutia.
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Post by brobear on Jan 12, 2023 8:33:33 GMT -5
Ussuri black bear (Asian black bear) This bear prefers the warm Asian climate (hence its name), but, in Russia, it can also be found in the Far East. It lives in the Khabarovsk Territory, Maritime Territory and in the south of Yakutia. It’s even depicted on the Khabarovsk coat of arms! In total, about 6,500 black bears live in Russia.
How to recognize it? Very easy: it’s relatively small (1.5 meters in length and 120 kg in weight) and has a V-shaped white stripe on his chest. Because of this, it is sometimes called the white-cheasted, or moon bear. Black bears eat vegetation, berries and nuts, but they will not pass up some small animals like frogs.
In the Far Eastern reserves, camera traps often take videos of bears scratching their backs against a tree like Baloo from ‘The Jungle Book’!
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Post by brobear on Jan 12, 2023 8:53:37 GMT -5
East of Siberia: Heeding the Sign Things had gone from one dead tiger to one live tiger, to one live tiger and one dead bear, all in the span of about 45 minutes By Jonathan C. Slaght on March 5, 2018 shaggygod.proboards.com/thread/188/general-discussion?page=2 This is a story that starts with a tiger and involves a bear or two, but if I had to choose I’d say this is a story about a crow. In June 2006 I was asked to help find a dead tiger. I’d just completed a field season studying Blakiston’s fish owls and had a few extra days in Ternei, a coastal village home to WCS’s Siberian Tiger Project. There, I’d join tiger biologists for evening beers and hear tales of roaring tigers, charging bears, and other high-adrenaline adventures. These were stories told with matter-of-factness rather than bravado, as though the encounters were with livestock not mega carnivores. I’d sit back and listen, pleased that these incidents did not involve me. While I was comfortable working in forests with tigers nearby it seemed reckless to actively seek one out. There’s something inherently intimidating about massive, toothy predators that like to hide from things then later jump out and kill those things. One morning John Goodrich, then the field coordinator for the Siberian Tiger Project, told me that a radio-collared tiger had not moved in days. This likely meant one of two things: either the tiger died a natural death, or had been shot and his collar discarded by poachers to cover their tracks. John was looking for an extra set of eyes in his search for the carcass, and since the tiger was presumed dead this seemed pretty safe to me. I agreed to go. We drove about ten kilometers from town, where John eased his pickup off the road and activated his VHF receiver, surprised to hear the steady beeps of an “active” signal. Radio transmissions are either “active”—meaning the tiger is moving about, or “passive”—meaning that the tiger has been immobile for some hours. It had been several “passive” readings in a row, over a series of days, that prompted field assistants to deem this tiger dead. It now appeared they had been mistaken. I looked at John, assuming that this new information meant that we were to call the search off, but he shrugged and pushed ahead. We were now looking for a live tiger. We followed the strength of the radio signal up a forested hill, with John pausing periodically to reassess our trajectory. Halfway through our ascent, sweaty from the humidity and the climb, the signal weakened then melted into the background sea of radio static. We looked at each other: how had the tiger disappeared? When we reached the top of the hill it became clear. John spotted a tiger bed near the ridge: a spot where the animal had been lying only moments before. When the tiger sensed our approach he quietly retreated over the ridge and down into the neighboring valley. The signal disappeared because VHF radio waves cannot pass through mountains. As John investigated the tiger bed I kept my eyes fixed on the ridge, half expecting a tiger to explode back across at any moment. After all, I’d heard stories that started just like this. I fumbled to unclip the canister of bear spray hanging from my belt: a terse blast of capsaicin was our only defense should the tiger decide to roar its way back into the story. John, oblivious to my concern, picked up a stray hair here and there, then knelt closely to the bed and inhaled deeply. “I smell bear,” he began, “I think this tiger ate a bear!” He stood up with fire in his eyes. “We’ve got a dead bear to look for.” I stared at him, incredulous. Things had gone, first, from one dead tiger, to then one live tiger, to now one live tiger and one dead bear—all in the span of about 45 minutes. This was the mega carnivore equivalent of things getting out of hand. This corner of northeast Asia is the only place in the world where tigers and brown bears live in the same forests, and the prospect that John and I had stumbled upon the aftermath of a direct and fatal encounter washed me with alternating waves of wonder and trepidation. We began a methodological search for bear remains, moving in an ever-widening circle emanating from the tiger bed. We occasionally stumbled into an area heavy with the aroma of death. Scents of decay can drift from the point of origin; sometimes collecting far from a carcass itself. But, try as we might, we could not pinpoint its source. John and I spent the better part of an hour in our search, and eventually sat on a log to admit defeat. Hearing wings, I looked up to spy a crow flying in our direction above the canopy. When it reached us the bird cocked its head, peered down, and croaked a curt caw. Then it wheeled in the sky and flew back from where it had come. John and I watched silently then resumed talking. A minute later the same bird (or one just like it) returned and repeated the action: flying toward us, looking down, calling, and then flying back. John’s interest in our search was renewed: he recalled stories about ravens leading hunters to deer and boar, hoping to feed off scraps once the hunter was done. John wondered aloud if this crow was doing something similar. We stood and pursued, following the crow east. About a hundred paces later the stench of death grew stronger. The forest unexpectedly opened to a small clearing about ten meters across and at my feet lay the severely-decomposed hind leg of a bear. This was a horror of a thing that shared a striking resemblance to a human leg. John moved ahead to discover a similarly-ripe forearm: pale bone and fetid flesh camouflaged among the detritus of the forest floor. Then John found a skull. Judging by the tooth wear this had been a very old brown bear. The stench here was indescribable. Only then did I notice our surroundings with more clarity. It looked like a grenade had gone off. Everything was devastated: shrubs were stripped of their leaves, branches were broken, and the soil had been scraped from the forest floor and piled into a massive mound in the middle of this space. I had no idea what I was looking at but of course John did: this was a bear cache. Brown bears sometimes bury their kills for future consumption, and they do so by hiding the meat under a pile of dirt and debris they scrape together. The exact sequence of events was unclear, but what we did know was that an old brown bear had died, and was then buried by another bear. Whether it had been killed by that bear, or a tiger, or died of some other reason we would never know. But at some point a radio-collared tiger had discovered this cache and spent several days digging up and consuming various bear bits. This was why the tiger’s collar had transmitted a number of “inactive” signals across a protracted period: the tiger was lazing about in a bear-induced food coma. I noticed a few crows bustling impatiently in the canopy, and was reminded of how we found that place to begin with. Were the crows waiting for us to dig up more bear? This is why I think this is a story about a crow: despite all we know about tigers and bears from radio-telemetry and other technologies, ultimately it was a crow that helped us fit the puzzle pieces together. It’s a gentle reminder to sometimes filter out the static, heed the signs nature leaves in plain sight, and to always follow the crow.
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Post by brobear on Jan 23, 2023 2:08:45 GMT -5
*12 yr. old news: Russian bears treat graveyards as 'giant refrigerators' www.theguardian.com/world/2010/oct/26/russia-bears-eat-corpses-graveyards A shortage of bears' traditional food near the Arctic Circle has forced the animals to eat human corpses, say locals. From a distance it resembled a rather large man in a fur coat, leaning tenderly over the grave of a loved one. But when the two women in the Russian village of Vezhnya Tchova came closer they realised there was a bear in the cemetery eating a body. Russian bears have grown so desperate after a scorching summer they have started digging up and eating corpses in municipal cemetries, alarmed officials said today. Bears' traditional food – mushrooms, berries and the odd frog – has disappeared, they added. The Vezhnya Tchova incident took place on Saturday in the northern republic of Komi, near the Arctic Circle. The shocked women cried in panic, frightening the bear back into the woods, before they discovered a ghoulish scene with the clothes of the bear's already-dead victim chucked over adjacent tombstones, the Russian newspaper Moskovsky Komsomelets reported. Local people said that bears had resorted to scavenging in towns and villages - rummaging through bins, stealing garden carrots and raiding tips. A young man had been mauled in the centre of Syktyvkar, Komi's capital. "They are really hungry this year. It's a big problem. Many of them are not going to survive," said Simion Razmislov, the vice-president of Komi's hunting and fishing society. World Wildlife Fund Russia said there had been a similar case two years ago in the town of Kandalaksha, in the northern Karelia republic. "You have to remember that bears are natural scavengers. In the US and Canada you can't leave any food in tents in national parks," said Masha Vorontsova, Director of the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) in Russia. "In Karelia one bear learned how to do it [open a coffin]. He then taught the others," she added, suggesting: "They are pretty quick learners." The only way to get rid of the bears would be to frighten them with something noisy like a firework or shoot them, she said. According to Vorontsova, the omnivorous bears had "plenty to eat" this autumn, with foods such as fish and ants at normal levels. The bears raided graveyards because they offered a supply of easy food, she said, a bit like a giant refrigerator. "The story is horrible. Nobody wants to think about having a much loved member of their family eaten by a bear." The bear population in Russia is relatively stable with numbers between 120,000 and 140,000. The biggest threat isn't starvation but hunting - with VIP sportsmen and wealthy gun enthusiasts wiping out most of the large male bears in Kamchatka, in Russia's Far East. Chinese poachers have killed many black bears near the border, selling their claws and other parts in markets. The Russian government is drafting legislation to ban the killing of bears during the breeding season.
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Post by brobear on Jan 23, 2023 2:23:31 GMT -5
Bears and Russia www.russianrail.com/news/bears_and_russia The Russian Bear Today I want to talk a bit about bears and there association with Russia. The bear is one of the most common figures associated with Russia, and it can be seen in many Russian symbols. The Russian bear is a national personification for Russia, used in cartoons, fairy tales, and dramatic plays since at least the 17th century. After the fall of the Soviet Union, there was even some discussion in the Russian Parliament of having a bear as the new Russian coat of arms, however it was the Tsarist coat of arms of the double-headed eagle that was restored. Russians also use the term for human-like characteristics also, a clumsy but kind person and be referred to as a bear. To the right you can see a huge flag displayed at a 2008 European qualifier in Moscow, the flag depicts a strong fearsome Russian bear along with the writing "Go Russia!" For the 1980 Olympic Games held in Moscow, Russia chose the Russian teddy bear "Misha" as the mascot. Both Russians and the outside world identify Russia with the bear, Misha just helped to shape this view in a positive way as a small, cuddly and smiling bear, as opposed to a big, brutal, and clumsy bear. The bear has also been depicted with the 2014 Winter Olympics that will be held in the southern Russian city of Sochi. The bear was also taken up as the symbol of the United Russia Party, which has dominated the political life in Russia since the early 2000s. And coincidentally, in 2008 Dmitry Medvedeev, whose name means bear in Russian, was elected president. It is also a popular stereotype that if you go to Russia you'll see bears walking on the streets. Well, unfortunately, when you come visit you wont see any bears on the streets, you'll have to go to the zoo for that. However, there are several types of bears that do live in Russia. Mostly brown bears live in Russia, and there are many subspecies with various names, here are a few of them: The Eurasian Brown Bear, also known as the common brown bear. The largest brown bear population in world can be found in Russia, east of the Ural mountain range, in the large Siberian forests. The Kamchatka Brown Bear, also known as the Far Eastern Brown Bear. This subspecies of brown bear is native to the Anadyrsky District, the Kamchatka Peninsula, Karaginskiy Island, the Kuril Islands, the coastal strip west of the Sea of Okhotsk southward to the Stanovoy Range and the Shantar Islands. Ussuri Brown Bear, also known as the black grizzly. He can be found in the Ussuri krai, Sakhalin, the Amur Oblast. The Ainu people, an indigenous group in Japan and Russia, worshipped the Ussuri brown bear, eating its flesh and drinking its blood as part of a religious festival known as iomante. And of course the Russian Polar Bear, which lives in the Russian Arctic.
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