When I consider that there are seven subspecies of Asiatic black bears and sixteen subspecies of American black bears yet only two subspecies of American brown bears, I have to wonder why? Except for the Kodiak bear, all are classified as Ursus arctos horribilis. However, you can see a visible difference between the Coastal brown bears of the Alaskan peninsula and the silver-tipped grizzlies of inland Alaska, the almost white barren ground grizzly, or the often yellow-tinted grizzly of Yellowstone. Each grizzly population is different. All are classified as Ursus arctos horribilis.
Accepted scientific name: Ursus arctos dalli (Clinton Hart Merriam, 1896); however many authorities recognise only two subspecies of brown bear in North America: the grizzly bear (U.a. horribilis) and the Kodiak bear (U.a. middendorffi). This places these bears of the Alaskan panhandle in the subspecies U.a. Horribilis.
In 1918 Clinton Hart Merriam divided the North American brown bears into 86 subspecies based upon small physical differences, mainly relating to skull measurements. Over time this list has been reduced but some experts believe that there is still sufficient evidence to warrant classifying five North American subspecies in addition to the widely accepted grizzly and Kodiak bear subspecies. In this website we include those five subspecies; the Dall brown bear (U.a. dalli) being one of them. However, much of the following information, other than range, is similar or identical to that given on the pages for the Alaskan (U.a.alascensis), Peninsula (U.a. gyas), Sitka (U.a. sitkensis) and Stickeen (U.a. stikeenensis) brown bears.
Description: A large bear, most commonly dark brown in colour but can range from blonde through to black. The often grizzled appearance is caused by the light coloured tips of the long guard hairs over the shoulders and back. The bears have a distinctive hump on the shoulders and a slightly dished profile to the face. The front claws are noticeably long. There is considerable variation in size depending upon the food available. Adult males typically weigh 135 to 390 kg, females 95 to 205 kg. Adults are usually between 90 and 110 cm at the shoulder. These bears are usually larger than those of the interior.
Range: Found in the north of the Alaskan panhandle region containing Yakutat Bay and Hubbard Glacier.
Habitat: Coastal zone, including the Yakutat foreland and inland in forests.
Status: Brown bears are listed as “of least concern” by the IUCN and listed in CITES Appendix II. There are around 30,000 brown bears in total in Alaska (excluding the subspecies U.a.middendorffi). Populations in Alaska appear healthy and productive. Densities vary depending on the quality of the environment.
Life span: Around 20 to 30 years in the wild. The oldest recorded bears in Alaska were a 38 year old male and a 39 year old female.
Food: The bears are omnivorous and eat plants, grasses, sedges, roots, tubers, seeds, berries, salmon, small mammals and carrion. They will also predate upon moose, particularly newborn animals.
Behaviour: The bears reach sexual maturity between the ages of four and seven years. Mating occurs between May and July. The bears go into winter dens usually in October or November and emerge in April, May or June. Cubs are born in the den in January and February, litters usually being of two or three cubs but can be of one or four. They will remain with the mother for two to three years during which time she will not become pregnant again. Except for mating and for mothers with cubs, grizzly bears are solitary although they will congregate in groups where there are plentiful sources of food, such as spawning salmon, whale carcasses and sedge fields.
Threats: As with other Alaskan bears there is the risk of Habitat loss, habitat fragmentation, and the resultant conflicts with humans. Poaching including for body parts to be used in medicine seems to be an increasing threat for all bears although the relative isolation of some Alaskan populations may afford them some protection from this. Hunting is generally well regulated and based upon reliable population estimates. It seems likely that these bears are or will soon be affected by climate change either directly or indirectly as habitat and food sources change or disappear.
The Stickeen brown bear (Ursus arctos stikeenensis), also known as Stikine brown bear, is a large, North American brown bear that is most commonly dark brown in color but can also range from blonde to black, featuring a distinctive hump on its shoulders and a slightly dished profile to the face.
With long front claws, an adult male typically weighs between 135 and 390 kg (298 and 860 lb), and an adult female between 95 and 205 kg (209 and 452 lb), and have shoulders between 90 and 110 cm (35 and 43 in). However, the size varies depending upon the amount of food
Last Edit: Mar 31, 2020 6:24:36 GMT -5 by King Kodiak
"It would be fitting, i think, if among the last manmade tracks on earth could be found the huge footprints of the great brown bear" (Earl Fleming, 1958)
Grizzly bear F148 continues to offer insight into human-bear relationship
Partial map showing the movements of grizzly bear F148 over the course of a week in July 2014. F148 wears a tracking collar that provides researchers with valuable insight into her behaviour. (Map: Chris Brackley/Canadian Geographic) Previous Next By Alexandra Pope June 3, 2016 The infamous bear F148—a female grizzly whose activities have been monitored via GPS collar since 2014—has been re-collared for a third time as researchers continue to look for ways to help Alberta's threatened grizzly population. F148's first collar was part of a project between Parks Canada and CP Rail aimed at decreasing the number of bears killed in collisions with trains. The five-and-a-half year old grizzly became a subject of particular fascination to researchers as they tracked her movements only to discover that she is disconcertingly habituated to humans.
Grizzly bear F148 snacks on some dandelions in this screenshot from a video captured by a remote wildlife camera near Banff. The above map, originally published in the April 2015 issue of Canadian Geographic, shows F148’s movements during a single week in July 2014 when she trekked more than 60 kilometres over territory between Banff and Sunshine Village, at one point meandering up 2,473-metre Harvey Pass to forage in an isolated alpine basin northwest of the Sunshine Village ski area, but ultimately returning to Banff via the Trans-Canada Highway. At several points, F148 crossed the highway and the CP rail tracks — both hot spots for bear deaths — and her collar has tracked her to campsites and golf courses on more than one occasion. While this tendency to hew close to human settlements has researchers concerned for both F148's safety and the public's, it's valuable insight into the animal's behaviour. That will ultimately help officials create habitat and infrastructure to protect both grizzlies and people. For example, nearby Canmore created designated wildlife corridors so animals can move safely through the town, a garbage management regime is in place, and the WildSmart program teaches residents how to share their environment with bears. "The uniqueness of Banff and the immediate Bow Valley area is that folks move there to coexist with nature," Courtney Hughes, a doctoral candidate at the University of Alberta studying social tolerance for grizzlies, told Can Geo last year. "They're keen to adopt mitigation measures so the species can persist." Related: What's behind the rise in grizzly bear deaths from train collisions?
Post by King Kodiak on Apr 13, 2020 18:22:18 GMT -5
Good report Normal guy. I really hope nothing happens to her. Hope they try to move her away from the train tracks and the people.
Last Edit: Apr 13, 2020 18:23:20 GMT -5 by King Kodiak
"It would be fitting, i think, if among the last manmade tracks on earth could be found the huge footprints of the great brown bear" (Earl Fleming, 1958)
Edit : Either there is two F148 bears or one of the articles is false about the age of the bear.
The first article [2016] I posted about the pictured brown bear (F148) said she was 5 and a half year old while the second article I post (which should legitimately be more accurate in terms of scientific article described a 10 year old F148 being recaptured in 1993)
weird....
Last Edit: Apr 13, 2020 19:18:14 GMT -5 by Deleted
Post by King Kodiak on Apr 13, 2020 19:24:33 GMT -5
Sadly, she was killed by an hunter in 2017 at the age of 34 years old.
Damn. Well, i have no words for this. If i say whats on my mind, i will get in trouble here. Search for some of my posts in the "hunters" threads if you want to know. I know she is in heaven now.
"It would be fitting, i think, if among the last manmade tracks on earth could be found the huge footprints of the great brown bear" (Earl Fleming, 1958)
Numbers in Yellowstone Approximately 150 with home ranges wholly or partially in the park. As of 2019, 728 estimated in greater Yellowstone.
Where to See Dawn and dusk in the Hayden and Lamar valleys, on the north slopes of MT. Washburn, and from Fishing Bridge to the East Entrance.
Size and Behavior Males weigh 200–700 pounds, females weigh 200–400 pounds; adults stand about 31⁄2 feet at the shoulder. May live 15–30 years. Grizzly bears are generally 11⁄2 to 2 times larger than black bears of the same sex and age class within the same geographic region, and they have longer, more curved claws. Lifetime home range: male, 800–2,000 square miles, female, 300–550 square miles. Agile; can run up to 40 mph. Can climb trees, but curved claws and weight make this difficult. Can also swim and run up and downhill. Adapted to life in forest and meadows. Food includes rodents, insects, elk calves, cutthroat trout, roots, pine nuts, grasses, and large mammals. Mate in spring, but implantation of embryos is delayed until fall; gives birth in the winter; to 1–3 cubs. Considered super hibernators.
Post by King Kodiak on Apr 18, 2020 6:38:53 GMT -5
As of 2019, 728 estimated in greater Yellowstone.
And this is great Brobear, because in 1975 there were only 136 grizzlies.
Last Edit: Apr 18, 2020 6:39:30 GMT -5 by King Kodiak
"It would be fitting, i think, if among the last manmade tracks on earth could be found the huge footprints of the great brown bear" (Earl Fleming, 1958)
Locomotion of plantigrade generalists has been relatively little studied compared with more specialised postures even though plantigrady is ancestral among quadrupeds. Bears (Ursidae) are a representative family for plantigrade carnivorans, they have the majority of the morphological characteristics identified for plantigrade species, and they have the full range of generalist behaviours. This study compared the locomotion of adult grizzly bears (Ursus arctos horribilis Linnaeus 1758), including stride parameters, gaits and analysis of three-dimensional ground reaction forces, with that of previously studied quadrupeds. At slow to moderate speeds, grizzly bears use walks, running walks and canters. Vertical ground reaction forces demonstrated the typical M-shaped curve for walks; however, this was significantly more pronounced in the hindlimb. The rate of force development was also significantly higher for the hindlimbs than for the forelimbs at all speeds. Mediolateral forces were significantly higher than would be expected for a large erect mammal, almost to the extent of a sprawling crocodilian. There may be morphological or energetic explanations for the use of the running walk rather than the trot. The high medial forces (produced from a lateral push by the animal) could be caused by frontal plane movement of the carpus and elbow by bears. Overall, while grizzly bears share some similarities with large cursorial species, their locomotor kinetics have unique characteristics. Additional studies are needed to determine whether these characters are a feature of all bears or plantigrade species.
INTRODUCTION
Within terrestrial animals a continuum of foot postures exists, from plantigrade species with their entire foot on the ground, to unguligrade animals that stand on the tips of their toes (Ginsburg, 1961; Carrano, 1997). The plantigrade posture is ancestral for mammals and it is generally agreed that digitigrade and unguligrade postures evolved as adaptations for speed and endurance. Because of this, numerous studies have examined the gait mechanics of digitigrade and unguligrade species (Budsberg et al., 1987; Hutchinson et al., 2006; Robilliard et al., 2007; Hudson et al., 2012). However, relatively few studies have examined the links between the plantigrade posture and locomotor mechanics. Plantigrade species are considered locomotor generalists, and because of the lack of cursorial specialisations, their limb movements are less restricted to the sagittal plane (Liem et al., 2001). Within mammals, plantigrade species include raccoons, badgers, weasels, as well as all rodents and primates. All of these animals are small compared with most digitigrade and especially unguligrade species; however, bears also retain the plantigrade stance. The goal of this study was to determine whether the locomotor mechanics of a stereotypical plantigrade quadruped, the grizzly bear (Ginsburg, 1961), differ from those of more extensively studied cursorial quadrupeds.
The selection of gaits used by plantigrade and cursorial species could represent some of the locomotor differences observed between these postures. Analysis of gaits, through footfall patterns, has been applied broadly to a wide range of terrestrial species (e.g. Gray, 1968; Hildebrand, 1976, 1977). Within quadrupedal animals, a lateral walk, in which the placement of the hindfoot is followed by the placement of the ipsilateral forefoot, is the gait used at slow speeds by the majority of species, including bears (Hildebrand, 1976). But, there is variation in terms of intermediate and faster gaits. The most common intermediate gait is the trot, defined by diagonal couplets, as this is seen in digitigrade (e.g. dogs and cats) and unguligrade (e.g. horses) animals, although these animals will also use a pace (ipsilateral couplets; Alexander, 1984). Interestingly, plantigrade carnivorans have not been shown to trot, but there have been a few observations of a pace (McClearn, 1992). Faster gaits include canters and gallops. Canters can be considered a slow gallop; however, they are characterised as being a three beat gait with one diagonal couplet (Hildebrand, 1976). Rotary gallops, as described above for the lateral walk, and transverse gallops, with the leading hindfoot placement being followed by the contralateral forefoot, can both be observed in the same species (Vilensky and Larson, 1989; Walter and Carrier, 2007), although there may be energetic differences between them (Bertram and Gutmann, 2009). Gallops are the fastest gait used by quadrupedal animals and studies have demonstrated that galloping occurs in species representing all three foot postures – unguligrade, digitigrade and bears within plantigrade species (Hildebrand, 1989; Renous et al., 1998; Robilliard et al., 2007; Walter and Carrier, 2007).
Within carnivorans, bears are the most plantigrade along the posture continuum (Ginsburg, 1961). The specific morphological features defining plantigrady include: well-developed digits on both forefeet and hindfeet; different sizes of the metapodials, e.g. metapodials 3 and 4 are rarely the same length in plantigrade species; and a substantial angle produced between the ulna and the humerus during elbow extension (20 deg in bears; Ginsburg, 1961). Ursidae is considered a generalist family; yet, the individual species exhibit substantial differences in diet, habitat and ecology. Grizzly bears have the broadest range of behaviours in Ursidae and are able to climb (particularly as juveniles), swim and have been reported to run as fast as 13.3 m s−1 (Garland and Janis, 1993; Brown, 2009). There has been very limited research into the locomotion and biomechanics of Ursidae (Gambaryan, 1974; Inuzuka, 1996; Renous et al., 1998); however, it is likely that differences in limb morphology and locomotor behaviour may exist within Ursidae (Irschick and Garland, 2001), as well as between bears and other quadrupeds.
Last Edit: Sept 9, 2020 23:52:56 GMT -5 by King Kodiak
"It would be fitting, i think, if among the last manmade tracks on earth could be found the huge footprints of the great brown bear" (Earl Fleming, 1958)
Grizzly Bear, 34, Confirmed to be Oldest in Yellowstone Region. The 34-year-old bear, who scientists have dubbed Grizzly 168, has lived as long as any grizzly documented in North America, the Associated Press reports.
By last summer, he was feeding on calves born to cattle grazing in the Wagon Creek area. At that point, he had lost most of his teeth. Rather than chewing on animals, the bear killed his meals by crushing them.
“There’s no real punctures,” Thompson said. “They have so much strength in their jaws they can kill an animal by basically gumming it.”
Last Edit: Jan 24, 2021 14:09:32 GMT -5 by brobear
Post by OldGreenGrolar on Jan 30, 2021 5:40:19 GMT -5
After centuries of persecution, brown bears are showing up in some unexpected places.
January 26, 2021
A bear emerges from dense vegetation and pauses on the shore. It’s early spring, and the young grizzly has only recently roused from hibernation, ravenous and driven. He lifts his head and gazes out across the falling tide to the opposite shore, where forested slopes are close enough to make out individual trees. The bear stands and sniffs the air.
Grizzlies can see about as well as we can, but it’s their olfactory powers—at least 2,000 times more acute than ours—that most likely set them in motion. We’ll never grasp how they perceive the world, let alone what they’re thinking. For some reason, this bear falls back on all fours, ambles away from prime habitat, and wades into the sea.
To reach the far shore, he dog-paddles west across Johnstone Strait, one of the narrowest navigable channels that make up the fabled Inside Passage. This stretch of water separates the North American mainland from the largest island on the Pacific coast, British Columbia’s Vancouver Island. It’s only three to 4.5 kilometers across but anywhere from 70 to 500 meters deep. Swift tidal currents can reach 15 kilometers per hour. Vessels of every description pass through, from kayaks, to freighters, to cruise ships carrying thousands of passengers. At this time of year, the water temperature averages about 8 °C, but the bear has almost no fat left to insulate him from the cold.
When he finally shakes off on the other side, the bear arrives in a place much like he left behind: dense stands of hemlock, cedar, and fir—coastal temperate rainforest—a grizzly Shangri-La. All that’s missing is other grizzlies. There are plenty of black bears and cougars about, but grizzlies are conspicuously absent. Maps showing the historical range of grizzlies color virtually the entire Pacific coast of North America but leave Vancouver Island oddly blank. And yet, in the spring of 2020, at least seven grizzlies were spotted roaming the island’s east coast. Although sightings have increased over the last 20 years, the island doesn’t have a viable grizzly population. Locals say that, after causing a stir, some of the interlopers are captured and returned to the mainland, a few become nuisances and are killed, and most eventually swim back to the mainland on their own.
Why do they come to the island only to leave again? What are they moving away from, or to? Could these bears be part of a larger, global pattern of expanding grizzly populations? These questions lead to an ice age mystery and a glimpse of a possible future.
From his home office 260 kilometers east of Johnstone Strait, Bruce McLellan has a deep and wide perspective on the state of the world’s bears. The wildlife research ecologist, who lives in a small, unincorporated community on the BC mainland, reports that the news on grizzlies is good. In fact, over the 40-plus years he’s spent studying them, things have never been better. McLellan recently retired from full-time work with the provincial government but remains committed to research. He’s a past president of the International Association for Bear Research and Management and is the Red List Authority for the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Bear Specialist Group, which supports the conservation of seven of the world’s eight remaining bear species and their habitats worldwide. (Polar bears have their own specialist group.) The population of grizzlies in southern British Columbia has been going up over the past few decades, he says, after we spent the previous two centuries trying to annihilate them.
“We’re getting more and more bears on the coast and more and more generally throughout the southern part of the province,” McLellan says. Five of the six populations he’s been monitoring are stable or increasing with annual rates up to seven percent, although one is in slow decline. This represents a remarkable turnaround.
To understand what’s happening today, it’s important to know that by the end of the 20th century we had eradicated grizzlies from over half of their historical range. In western North America, early European settlers identified grizzlies as threats to their livestock and agricultural crops. They also feared them as threats to human safety. For these reasons, settlers vigorously pursued and destroyed grizzlies. In British Columbia, the government paid bounties for their hides. When, as a society, we finally stopped shooting them on sight, McLellan says, the populations got a chance to recover. A recovering grizzly population means more young males—and they are programmed to disperse.
In British Columbia, some head north along the coast, some go east into the interior, and a few head west, swimming to Vancouver Island and smaller coastal islands. Coastal grizzlies can range for hundreds of square kilometers, depending on the habitat. The fact that they’re reclaiming habitat—and showing up in places we’ve never seen them before—should come as no surprise.
Say you’re a hungry young bear living in good habitat. What goes through your mind as you look across Johnstone Strait to Vancouver Island?
“You might be thinking, well there are no breeding opportunities here for quite a few years because I’ve got to deal with all these big dudes. I’m not gonna have a chance,” McLellan says. But he doubts it’s a cerebral thing. A lot of bear behavior is instinctual. Essentially, young male grizzlies are destined to wander until they find a place they like.
To some biologists, grizzlies are a brown bear subspecies; to others, they are just North America’s version of brown bears (U. arctos), a species that once roamed across much of the northern hemisphere. In North America, the historical range of brown bears stretched from the north coast of Alaska, where they still roam, to the northern half of Mexico, where they’ve long been extinct. Brown bears have thrived in a wide variety of environments, from alpine and tundra to grasslands, forests, and deserts. Although classed in the order Carnivora, brown bears are omnivores that take advantage of whatever food is available. In fact, they mostly eat plants. Like us, their adaptability to landscape and diet helps them succeed.
Christina Service is a young wildlife biologist on British Columbia’s central coast, 300 kilometers north of Johnstone Strait, in the village of Klemtu. She currently works for the Kitasoo/Xai’Xais Stewardship Authority, and is close to the beginning of her career. She calls speculation about why a grizzly would swim away from prime habitat toward an unknown island “the million-dollar question.”
In 2014, she documented and published her findings about the bears colonizing islands along British Columbia’s central coast, now known internationally as the Great Bear Rainforest. On these islands, she found young adult male grizzlies, which she calls “quintessential teenagers” predisposed to test boundaries and establish new territories, but she also found females with cubs. The narrowest gap separating these islands from the mainland is only about 300 meters.
The bears’ shift west, from the mainland to the islands, has been swift, Service says. “There are some underlying environmental conditions that have changed, and quite dramatically, to allow that shift to happen.”
She points to the history of industrial forestry, which altered landscapes, estuaries, rivers, and streams, and the decreased availability of salmon, as having contributed to the shift over the last century. Now added to the mix is climate change, which affects when and where vegetation becomes available. Coastal grizzlies are renowned for their photogenic seasonal salmon feasts. Less well known is their dependence on what’s called the “green wave,” during which vegetation reaches its nutritional peak in stages as the snowpack retreats. In increasingly warmer years, this vital food source greens up all at once. Service’s work documented grizzlies moving to islands and using this outer coastal landscape “in a way we typically don’t ascribe to grizzlies,” she says. Fishing for sea urchins, for example.
Service says that big range changes like the one documented on British Columbia’s central coast can be thought of as a canary in a coal mine, a warning that significant environmental shifts are underway—shifts driven by human activity.
North America has almost 60,000 brown bears, or grizzlies; approximately 54 percent live in Alaska and 25 percent live in British Columbia. South of the Canada-US border, they are also expanding their numbers and range. Montana and Wyoming are seeing an increase in grizzly densities of around three percent per year. Today, there are somewhere between 1,200 and 1,400 grizzlies in the contiguous United States. There is growing support for (as well as opposition to) reintroducing them in several western states, including California, which still prominently features a brown bear on its flag despite the fact that they were hunted to extinction in that state. The last reported sighting of a California brown bear was in 1924.
In Europe, brown bears are also increasing their numbers and expanding their range, especially in Norway and Sweden, where the population has gone up from around 1,000 bears in 1930 to roughly 3,400 today. After having eliminated or severely reduced their brown bear populations, Italy, Austria, and France are now reintroducing them to parts of their former range. In Western Europe, their stronghold is the Carpathian Mountains, which stretch through seven countries, including Romania, Ukraine, Poland, and the Slovak Republic. There, the brown bear population appears to be stable. For brown bears living throughout the rest of Eurasia, the story is less optimistic. Both brown bears and Asiatic black bears (U. thibetanus) are under increasing threat from poaching to supply the black market with bear gall bladders, paws, and other parts used in traditional Chinese medicine.
Back in North America, in addition to island-hopping along the west coast, brown bears are also heading north. The IUCN has had to redraw the brown bear range map to reflect this recent shift. Vast regions of the Arctic formerly considered polar bear territory are now brown bear range, including the west coast of Hudson Bay and Manitoba’s Wapusk National Park, which is famous for its polar bears. In the Arctic Archipelago, brown bears now roam a landscape significantly altered by climate change. They are taking over polar bear territory—and encroaching on their DNA.
Banks Island is a vast, treeless expanse of tundra and snow in the western Arctic Archipelago. The Inuvialuit people have found instances on the island of polar bears and brown bears reproducing, resulting in hybrid bears that share characteristics of both species. These individuals are not sterile like mules—horse-donkey hybrids—they produce fertile offspring. This reveals their close genetic heritage. In terms of evolutionary time, polar bears recently evolved from the brown bear line and moved into, learned to exploit, and became fully adapted to the Arctic environment in the past 500,000 years. But the Arctic is changing fast. The temperature is rising at three times the global rate, the sea ice is disappearing, and the tundra is turning to mud.
"Brown bears are expanding their range into polar bear habitat. The two species have begun to interbreed, creating hybrid offspring."
How did brown bears get to Banks Island? The shortest route is through neighboring Victoria Island, where the crossing from the North American mainland is 23.5 kilometers. The resident polar bears are phenomenal swimmers and are called sea bears (U. maritimus) for good reason. One female polar bear was recorded as having swum 687 kilometers over a period of nine days. Brown bears? Not so much. They are strong swimmers, but prefer to stay close to shore. Bruce McLellan estimates that, based on research done on the genetics of brown bears in Alaska’s Alexander Archipelago, male brown bears will swim up to seven kilometers, females no more than two. The brown bears arriving on Banks Island must have arrived by walking across seasonal sea ice.
McLellan believes the mystery of why there is no viable grizzly population on Vancouver Island likely comes down to that gap of three to 4.5 kilometers separating it from the mainland, and the difference between the distance male and female brown bears are willing to swim. That’s why the grizzlies seen arriving on Vancouver Island will almost certainly be young males. When they get there, he says, they find suitable habitat, but no chance to mate.
Around much of the world, when given the chance or forced by circumstance, brown bears are expanding their range. Just as a changing Arctic results in brown bears moving north today, evidence from a previous era of climate disruption holds clues of them moving south to Vancouver Island.
Some 60 kilometers west of Johnstone Strait is a rare karst landscape overlain with clearcut forest. For eons, water has dripped and coursed through the limestone mountains on northern Vancouver Island, creating a network of caves. Inside the rubble-choked entrance of one of those caves, discovered in 1993, the remains of three bear species were found. The cave would become known as Pellucidar, after the fictional subterranean world created by American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs (of Tarzan fame). The bones found in the cave provide hard evidence that brown bears were present on Vancouver Island at the end of the last ice age. Radiocarbon dating and DNA analysis revealed that some of those bones came from two individual brown bears that lived some 12,500 years ago.
Brown bears arrived in North America from Eurasia by crossing Beringia, the now-submerged land connecting modern-day Siberia and Alaska. Evidence suggests that, as the ice sheets retreated, brown bears ventured farther south into the continent at around the same time people did. On the shore of Calvert Island, just 63 kilometers north of Vancouver Island, recently discovered human footprints were radiocarbon dated to 13,000 years ago. Along with these newly arrived people, brown bears entered a novel and changing environment. They also encountered two other bear species that had already been living in the area for millennia.
The bones of a giant short-faced bear (Arctodus simus) were also found inside Pellucidar cave. These specimens are between 11,600 and 11,800 years old. Rearing up on their hind legs, giant short-faced bears stood twice as tall as the average man today. In addition to being North America’s largest carnivorous land mammal, they had longer legs than any bear species today and were undoubtedly the fastest bears to have ever lived, probably reaching speeds of 64 kilometers per hour, despite weighing twice as much as today’s average brown bear. Their skull and dentition suggest they were true carnivores that ate only meat, although paleontologists debate the veracity of that claim. Short-faced bears likely became extinct about 11,000 years ago. Their disappearance coincided with a changing climate; the loss of the large herbivores they preyed upon or scavenged, including horses, bison, and muskoxen; and perhaps increased competition from grizzlies.
"The short-faced bear was another bear species found in North America, but it could not weather the change following the last ice age."
The bones of a third species of bear were also found in Pellucidar cave. These specimens, dated to 11,125 years ago, belonged to an American black bear—the species that still thrives on the island today.
The fate of the brown bears of Vancouver Island remains a mystery. All we know for certain is that they were there 12,500 years ago, and then they disappeared. Bruce McLellan’s best guess is that, in the competition for food and territory, they lost to black bears and people, who have shown a greater ability to live in proximity. We may never know. But Vancouver Island still offers excellent brown bear habitat. There’s no reason it could not support a population of grizzlies today or in the future. There are many factors that would inhibit grizzlies from establishing a population on Vancouver Island, crossing a three-to 4.5 kilometer gap is one of them.
McLellan has been around long enough to witness a dramatic shift in attitudes toward grizzlies. The original “war on carnivores” waged by settlers and their descendants has evolved into a strong desire to help populations recuperate. Things really changed in 1973 with the Endangered Species Act, which proved to be a watershed in the efforts to protect grizzlies in the United States. “People started valuing them,” he says. And, in 2017, public opinion in British Columbia led the government to end the hunting of grizzlies throughout the province.
Christina Service has also seen a change in attitudes on the BC coast since her PhD work just six years ago. She’s optimistic that, in Canada’s Great Bear Rainforest at least, the future of brown bears is bright. She credits this to the investment in bear research and monitoring, First Nations rapidly incorporating this knowledge into conservation policy and coexistence strategies, and communities pivoting toward a conservation-based economy—one that values ecotourism and bear viewing.
Both biologists agree that climate change will again play a role in the future of brown bears, as it did at the end of the last ice age, but the outcome is difficult to predict. Over the next century, coastal brown bears may shift from being “salmon-driven to berry-driven,” McLellan says. This represents a fundamental change for coastal grizzlies, from a high-calorie to a lower-calorie diet, and will test their adaptability—berry-eating bears would be smaller by about half. One of McLellan’s biggest concerns regarding climate change and brown bears is that human climate refugees will look at British Columbia’s temperate coast as an attractive place to live and beat the heat in a warming world. As we expand our range, it means even more competition for space and resources.
In the Arctic, sea ice is disappearing at an accelerated pace. Brown bears will likely continue to push north as polar bears decline, making U. arctos an early winner of the climate change sweepstakes. If current trends continue, including the loss of habitat and hybridization, brown bear DNA could eventually overwhelm polar bear DNA. At that point, polar bears as we know them would disappear from the landscape, their remaining genetic material having rejoined U. arctos—the species from which they evolved.
As McLellan approaches the end of his career, the fortunes of brown bears are looking brighter than when he started. In a world of bad news for wildlife and wilderness, that’s encouraging. Brown bears are curious and have proved themselves to be highly adaptable creatures across incredibly varied landscapes. Before settlers arrived, brown bears and Indigenous peoples lived throughout the western half of North America. We know they will coexist with us. Their survival depends on our willingness to coexist with them.
Post by King Kodiak on Feb 18, 2021 9:58:53 GMT -5
Book "Lives of Game Animals", genre is animal behavior and zoology:
A monster Yellowstone grizzly killed in 1920, with his veins absolutely dry of blood, which represents a loss of nearly 10% of his weight, he was 916 lbs. There was hardly an inch of fat on his back:
Last Edit: Feb 18, 2021 10:02:18 GMT -5 by King Kodiak
"It would be fitting, i think, if among the last manmade tracks on earth could be found the huge footprints of the great brown bear" (Earl Fleming, 1958)