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Post by brobear on Mar 18, 2017 7:18:03 GMT -5
The character of the grizzly cannot be stated by any single description or adjective. In one of the many books I have read on the subject of grizzlies, one naturalist stated that grizzly bears made him think of the Disney animated movie, "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." Like the dwarfs, every grizzly has his own unique personality, no less than us humans do. Some are happy and playful while others are grumpy all the time. The one thing that every grizzly has in common is the fact that they are all extremely individualistic.
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Post by brobear on Mar 18, 2017 7:18:54 GMT -5
Tracking Gobi Grizzlies by Douglas Chadwick - Copyright 2017 Patagonia For more than a decade, my home was a log cabin in the Montana Rockies, off the grid and way off the clock. My to-do-list on many days looked like this: Chop firewood, Pump water, Go watch wildlife next door in Glacier National Park, Especially bears. Before long, I had an adult bear in view at a lake. I dropped from the ridge to a lower band of ledges and set up a telescope. The animal was wading out from shore with only portions of its back and snout showing, furry alligator-style. This grizzly wasn't in the water to hunt for fish or for anything else, though. It wasn't there to drink its fill or to interact with another bear. It was just doing what any of us might while free-roaming the slopes on a hot afternoon - getting wet and keeping cool. Feeling fine. Every so often, the bear would stand to swipe at the surface or pound it with its paws to create a splash. At other times, Aqua-Grizz would submerge completely and then rise on its hind legs again to shake itself, whipping rings of water from its head and upper torso. Returning to shore, the bear came upon a washed-up tree trunk. After rolling this around for a few moments, the grizzly lay on its back among the green sedges, wrestled the heavy length of wood atop its body, lifted it, and began juggling the thing with all four feet. Why? Well, why will a grown-up grizzly repeatedly slide down a tilted patch of snow? Why does one foraging in a meadow sometimes break into a wriggly, loose-limbed frolic, swinging its head and zigzagging this way and that? I think the better question - and also the answer - is: Why not? Imagine you own hundreds of pounds of muscle packed atop muscle, claws that measure three or four inches along the outside curve, and the ability to accelerate from zero to thirty-five miles per hour in seconds. What you want to do, you can do, no worries. You're a heavy-duty organic power generator with a fresh tank of fruit sugar fuel, and this log is just lying there waiting to be tossed around. While science can't quite bring itself to say that grizzlies like to goof, the experts acknowledge that, young or old, these bears do devote an intriguing amount of time to play behavior. Exuberance is part of what defines them. So is a strongly developed sense of curiosity. Grizzlies are given to thoroughly investigating objects of interest, manipulating them with their mouth as well as with those broad, flexible paws, trying in their own way to learn more about how the world works. Its one of the main reasons I've always found in natural to relate to grizz - to imagine myself in their place as they move through a landscape, poking around. I also try never to forget that the same animals can instantly turn volcanic when upset.
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Post by brobear on Mar 20, 2017 3:46:22 GMT -5
From Frank321 to BigBonns... BigBonns, There has been more than one instance; to my knowledge they have occured in Hayden Valley, Hoodoo Creek, and Grizzly Overlook. Here is one study that conducted an autopsy on the black bear: www.greateryellowstonescience.org/files/pdf/ys5-gunther.pdf I'd also like to make a few comments on grizzly-black bear interaction. In general, both brown and black bears are K-selected species. Black bears evolved differently from their brown cousins in forested areas. These forests that blackies live in allow them to escape predation from grizzlies relatively easily; a boar black bear at about 55% the size of a boar grizzly can climb to much higher branches.Grizzlies on the other hand tend to live in rockier regions and open grasslands. In these areas bears can find food through fossorital behavior or under boulders and rocks. It's when black bears wander too far away from forests that they risk predation from grizzlies. Lacking the shoulder hump of brown bears, they can't power their limbs to move as rapidly as grizzlies and as a result aren't nearly as fast, with black bears moving at about 25-30 mph and grizzlies at over 30 mph (in at least two cases brown bears have been recorded at 40 mph, although in one the bear was a sow and presumably quite light relative to a boar and in another of unconfirmed gender). The foraging behaviors of black bears may lead them out of forests, as a note. For example in spring black bears emerging from their winter hibernation will sniff out newborn elk calves in fields of grass which are outside of their forest biomes. During mating seasons, and because of the competition associated with Darwinian fitness, young boar grizzlies may also be driven into forests temporarily where they may encounter black bears. The case at Hoodoo Creek may be one such case, although I haven't looked into it too much. Here's moreinformation on the case of the Hayden Valley predation as well: www.nps.gov/yell/naturescience/upload/predation.pdf
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Post by brobear on Mar 20, 2017 3:47:34 GMT -5
The Grizzly by Enos A. Mills - There is marked difference in the ordinary ways of the black and the grizzly. The grizzly is energetic, thorough, works hard, and takes life rather seriously; while the black bear is lazy, careless, does no more work each day than is necessary, and is more playful. The grizzly's hibernating-den is usually a substantial complete affair, while that of the black bear is more or less of a makeshift. The black bear likes to play with other bears, while the grizzly enjoys playing alone. The black bear climbs a tree easily and often sleeps in a tree-top; the grizzly bear rarely climbs after he passes cubhood.
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Post by brobear on Mar 22, 2017 5:52:22 GMT -5
The Beast That Walks Like Man by Harold McCracken. ( Theodore ) Roosevelt early recognized that they ( grizzlies ) are as diversified in individual temperaments as men; and he was one of the first to advance the belief that these mighty mammals have changed their attitude toward men and become far less bold, from learning that their human enemy with a gun in his hands is an entirely different proposition than their hairy ancestors had known, when there were only primitive Indians with stone-age weapons of offense. "My own experience with bears tends to make me lay special emphasis upon their variation of temper," he wrote in 1897, in an article on "The Bear's Disposition," for the 'Book of the Boone and Crockett Club', of which he was one of the editors. "There are savage and cowardly bears, just as there are big and little ones; and sometimes these variations are very marked among bears of the same districts."
Roosevelt had a great deal to say on these important subjects, although he never quite made a thesis of it. As early as 1885, in his 'Hunting Trips of a Ranchman', he had this to say: "Nowadays these great bears are undoubtedly much better aware of the death-dealing power of men, and, as a consequence, are much less fierce, than was the case with their forefathers, who so unhesitatingly attacked the early Western travelers and explorers. Constant contact with rifle-carrying hunters, for a period extending over many generations of bear-life, has taught the grizzly by bitter experience that man is his undoubted overlord ... and this knowledge has become an hereditary characteristic; though if he is wounded or thinks himself cornered he will attack his foes with a headlong, reckless fury that renders him one of the most dangerous of wild beasts."
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Post by brobear on Mar 22, 2017 5:58:17 GMT -5
BEARS of the last frontier... Many people are surprised to hear that a significant part of a bear's diet is made up of vegetation, including grasses, sedges, berries, and roots. Large molars enable them to grind cellulose effectively. But no matter how preoccupied with grazing, bears in this environment ( Alaskan Peninsula ) are ever watchful for other bears - as targets for mating, competitors to confront, or individuals to avoid.
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Post by brobear on Mar 22, 2017 5:59:00 GMT -5
BEARs of the last frontier... I thought courtship was complicated for people, but not any more. I've watched the brown bears play the game for over a month now and I'm beginning to think we have it easy. ...The big fellow had an air of supreme confidence about him, and he immediately pulled out some of his best moves to impress his competitors, starting with a bear's typical cowboy swagger; Elvis eat your heart out: The hip gyrations on this guy caught everyone's attention, including another large male that was already copulating with a female. His female glanced towards the handsome newcomer, and paid for it with a jealous bite on the ear from her frustrated male. She let out a growl of pain and sure enough, Elvis clocked the commotion and came shuffling over as fast as his swagger would allow. There's only one thing that makes a male bear more attractive than the hip swagger and that's when he urinates all over his feet to spread his scent as widely as possible with each stride. Yes, this guy really knew what he was doing. Walking his scent all over the meadow certainly got some attention and put the other males on notice. Females took note left, right, and center. Only one thing stood between him and his chosen female: the male that had already claimed her.
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Post by brobear on Mar 22, 2017 6:16:28 GMT -5
www.express.co.uk/news/nature/519452/Bear-revenge-attack-hunter-shot A hunter was left stunned when he awoke one morning to find his car torn to pieces - and he thinks the culprit was a wild animal he shot the day before. The unnamed man had wounded a brown bear while on a hunt. And he now believes the animal tracked him down to where he was staying in order to wreak his vengeance. The hunter thinks the fearsome animal used its acute sense of smell to narrow down which car belonged to the man who had previously shot him in the thigh. One of his friends said: "That must have been a busy night for the bear, he worked hard." He added that the hunter must have had something sweet inside of his car but this was denied by the vehicle's owner, according to The Siberian Times. The hunter's vehicle had its body scratched, the lights broke, its windscreen smashed and the front and rear seats were torn out. The rear bumper of the car was also ripped off of the Ford and bear footprints could be seen in the mud nearby. The incident happened when the victim and his two friends were hunting at a Siberian forest. None of the other cars parked nearby were damaged by the bear.
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Post by brobear on Mar 23, 2017 15:16:12 GMT -5
www.sdl.lib.mi.us/history/curwood.html James Oliver Curwood was an avid hunter long before he became a conservationist. He wrote fiction novels which were based on the real natural world. His book, 'The Grizzly King' ( 1916 ) was made into a popular movie, 'The Bear' in 1988. Of course, the French director, Jean-Jacques took a few liberties ( Disney style ). The book is much more exciting and informative than the movie. Also note that Thor was a real-life grizzly. One of the things that got me to thinking came from a conversation between the two fictional hunters, Langdon ( the older, wiser, more experienced ) and the younger hunter, Bruce. I will not copy word for word from the book; much too lengthly. But here is the gist of it: The old hunter was saying that most books written about grizzlies either make a hunter laugh or make him angry. For example, the idea of a grizzly making his scratch marks on a tree and, supposedly the next boar grizzly that comes along tests his reach against the dominant boar who had made his mark. Utter nonsense! Most grizzly experts today will tell you that a grizzly is not territorial. Curwood had another idea. The dominant boar grizzly is indeed territorial; but the rules of a grizzly are not the same as the rules of a big cat ( big cats not mentioned in the book ). The apex boar grizzly will allow other grizzlies and other predators to live within his domain. After all, while some grizzlies are more predatory than others, no grizzly depends solely on meat. The top grizzly will ignore the other males so long as they stay out of his way. To challenge him over a berry bush, a choice fishing spot, or a female will not go unpunished. He will patrol his kingdom often, making sure that all who live there knows and understands that he is their lord and master.
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Post by brobear on Mar 23, 2017 15:16:44 GMT -5
The Grizzly, Our Greatest Wild Animal by Enos Abijah Mills - published in 1919. The territory dominated by Old Timberline had an area of about eighty square miles. The western boundary-line followed the rim of the Continental Divide for nearly fifteen miles. Meeker Ridge and Cony Creek were other boundary-lines, while at the north stood Chief's Head Mountain and Long's Peak. Toward the south the territory narrowed and was not more than two miles across; in the center it must have been nearly ten miles wide. An extensive area lay above the timber-line. There were forests primeval, a number of canons and streams, numerous small lakes and beaver ponds. In this varied and extensive region Old Timberline had all the necessities of life and many of the luxuries of beardom.
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Post by brobear on Mar 23, 2017 15:17:19 GMT -5
The Grizzly, Our Greatest Wild Animal by Enos Abijah Mills A grizzly is strongly attached to his home territory and spends most of his time in it. Occasionally, and in exceptional cases regularly, he wanders far away. A scarcity of food may cause him to leave home temporarily; or excessive food elsewhere may attract him. The abundance of food at any place in a bear's territory gives other grizzlies public rights. A berry-patch or a stream which has a supply equal to the needs of many bears, a beaver pond, or a lake, may become a public feeding-place. A flood, a storm, a snow-slide, or other agency may take the lives of a number of animals - cause a congestion of food in any territory. That there sometimes is fighting in these public places, and that one bear sometimes tries to hog a larger food-supply than he can use does not change the custom of the species. Incidentally, this violation of general or public rights but reminds us how human-like are bears in their habits, good and bad.
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Post by brobear on Mar 23, 2017 15:17:54 GMT -5
The Grizzly, Our Greatest Wild Animal by Enos Abijah Mills There are a number of regions in Alaska where a bear lives in his own chosen locality but regularly goes to a public feeding-ground. Much of the food is along the seashore and on the lower courses of streams. There is also a food-belt above the timber-line, where mice abound and where there is grass upon which bears feed. The seasonal nature of part of the food may thus encourage or compel bears of one locality to travel a long distance to secure the only food obtainable. If there be straggling grizzlies who wander about like gypsies, they are the rare exception: the nearest to them were the few "buffalo grizzlies," those that in old days followed the migrating buffalo herds.
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Post by brobear on Mar 23, 2017 15:19:04 GMT -5
Bear Almanac by Gary Brown. Tiger - Tigers prey on bears in their respective habitat. The diet of some Siberian tigers is 5 to 8 percent Asiatic black bear, though the bears have been observed displacing tigers from their kills. Bengal tigers kill sun bears, though they will often avoid them, and they ambush or sneak up on a sloth bear. Brown bears are a more formidable challenge for a Siberian tiger, and most of those bears killed are young, orphaned, or bears too old or weak to defend against a tiger. books.google.pl/books?ei=i7KfUtWX...me&q=tiger According to Tungus, there are three competing groups: man, tigers, and large bears. If the tiger occupies a certain small valley, no bear and no man may come and disturb it. If a man camps in such a place, the tiger kills the horses, approaches the wigwam, frightens the women and children, but rarely kills them. If the man moves to another neighbouring valley, the tiger does not follow him, and leaves his family and horses alone. Neither does the tiger go to the valleys occupied by the large bear. The places belonging to the bear may easily be recognized by man, by the tiger, or by other bears. This animal lives with its mother until it is sometimes one or two years old. When the bear is alone, he has to find out a free place to live. It happens rather often that there are two claimants for the same place - a tiger and a bear. According to their practice, the bear puts his mark on a tree by biting it as high as he can. According to Tungus, the tiger is not as intelligent as the bear. "... If the first attack succeeds and the bear falls down, the tiger masters his foe and kills him; if not, the bear slowly but surely conquers the tiger and kills him. By this duel, the problem of the desired territory is solved for ever ..." From :"Social organization of the Northern Tungus" by S._M._Shirokogoroff en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S._M._Shirokogoroff
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Post by brobear on Mar 23, 2017 18:20:41 GMT -5
The Grizzly by Enos Mills.
One day in North Park, Colorado, I came upon the carcass of a cow that wolves had recently killed. It lay in a grassy opening surrounded by willow clumps. Knowing that bears were about, I climbed into the substantial top of a stocky pine near by, hoping that one would come to feast. A grizzly came at sundown.
When about 100 feet from the carcass the bear stopped. Standing erect with forepaws hanging loosely, he looked, listened, and carefully examined the air with his nose. The grizzly is eternally vigilant; he appears to feel that he is ever pursued. As the air was not stirring, I felt that he could not scent me in my tree-top perch. It may be, however, that he faintly caught my lingering scent where I had walked round the opening. After scouting for a minute or two with all his keen senses, he dropped on all fours and slowly, without a sound, advanced toward the willow clumps.
In places of possible ambush the grizzly is extremely cautious. He is not a coward, but he does not propose to blunder into trouble. When within thirty feet of the waiting feast this bear redoubled his precautions against surprise and ambush by walking around the carcass. Then, slipping stealthily to the edge of a thick willow clump, he flung himself into it with a fearful roar, instantly leaping out on the other side ready to charge anything that might start from the willows; but nothing started. Standing erect, tense in every muscle, he waited a moment in expectant attitude.Then he charged, roaring, through another willow clump, and another, until he had investigated every possible place of concealment near the carcass. Not finding an enemy, he at last went to the carcass.
When he had feasted for a few minutes, he suddenly rose, snarled, and sniffed along my trail for a few yards. He uttered a few growling threats. That a grizzly cannot climb a tree is a fact in natural history which gave me immense satisfaction. But the bear returned to the carcass and finished his feast. Finally, having raked grass and trash over the remains, he doubled back on his trail and faded into the twilight.
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Post by brobear on Mar 23, 2017 18:21:46 GMT -5
The Grizzly by Enos Mills.
*Note; a few interesting quotes on the topic of grizzly aggression...
Muir says: "There are bears in the woods, but not in such numbers nor of such unspeakable ferocity as town-dwellers imagine, nor do bears spend their lives in going about the country like the devil, seeking whom they may devour. Oregon bears, like most others, have no liking for man either as meat or as society; and while some may be curious at times to see what manner of creature he is, most of them have learned to shun people as deadly enemies."
William H. Wright says: "We know now that the grizzly is chock-full of curiosity, and that one of his habits is to follow up any trail that puzzles or interests him, be it of man or beast. This trait has been noted and misconstrued by many ... So often have I seen this curiosity and proved it to be innocent that I have no fear whatever of these animals when indulging in this weakness of theirs. Time and again, I have allowed one to approach within a few yards of me, and no calm observer who had watched a bear defying his own caution to satisfy his own inquisitiveness could mistake the nature of his approach."
James Capen Adams says: "He did not invite combat."
Dr. W.T. Hornaday says: "I have made many observations on the temper of the Grizzly Bear, and am convinced that naturally the disposition of this reputedly savage creature is rather peaceful and good-natured. At the same time, however, no animal is more prompt to resent an affront or injury, or punish an offender. The Grizzly temper is defensive, not aggressive; and unless the animal is cornered, or thinks he is cornered, he always flees from man."
Audubon says: "While in the neighborhood where the grizzly bear may possibly be hidden, the excited nerves will cause the heart's pulsations to quicken if but a startled ground squirrel run past, the sharp click of the lock is heard and the rifle hastily thrown to the shoulder before a second of time has assured the hunter of the trifling cause of his emotion."
Edward Umfreville says: "their nature is savage and ferocious, their power dangerous, and their haunts to be guarded against."
Sir Alexander MacKenzie says: "The Indians entertain great apprehension of this kind of a bear, which is called the grisly bear, and they never venture to attack it except in a party of at least three or four."
Henry M. Brackenridge says: "This animal is the monarch of the country which he inhabitates. The African lion or the Bengal tiger are not more terrible than he. He is the enemy of man and literally thirsts for human blood. So far from shunning, he seldom fails to attack and even to hunt him. The Indians make war upon these ferocious monsters with ceremonies as they do upon a tribe of their own species, and, in the recital of their victories, the death of one of them gives the warrior greater renown than the scalp of an enemy. He possesses an amazing strength, and attacks without hesitation and tears to pieces the largest buffalo."
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Post by brobear on Mar 23, 2017 18:22:27 GMT -5
The Grizzly Bear... His Fierceness... We are now arrived at a division of our subject where we are to meet what, at first sight, appears to be a tangle of contradictory evidence, and it behooves us to walk slowly, to preserve an open mind, and to keep our eyes carefully attentive to the signs of the trail. On the one hand, we shall find the sincere convictions and repeated statements of early writers, and a century of unquestioned belief on the part of the public. On the other, we shall find the calmer judgments of trained observers, and the overwhelming weight of contemporaneous experience. Were our fathers wrong about the nature of the grizzly? Or has the animal radically changed in a hundred years? Personally, I believe that we have to answer "Yes" to both questions; but I am convinced that the amount of alteration in the nature of the grizzly is insignificant compared to the extent to which preconceptions of early hunters colored their judgment. Let me say, to begin with, that twenty-five years of intercourse with these beasts has taught me to regard them with the most profound respect. I would no more provoke one, unarmed, or rashly venture upon any action that my experience has taught me they regard as calling for self-defence, than I would commit suicide. That they will not fight when they think they have to, no sane man would maintain. That, when they do fight, they are not the most formidable and doughty of antagonists, I have never heard hinted. But that they habitually seek trouble when they can avoid it, or that they ever did, I do not believe. Nor, in the authentic records upon which this popular belief is largely founded, and in which it was first put into words, can we find any facts calculated to uphold it.
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Post by brobear on Mar 23, 2017 18:23:13 GMT -5
The Grizzly Bear... And that the early explorers accepted the Indian verdict and thought it upheld by their own experiences is no less credible. For the grizzly bear, pursued into his fastness and attacked with bows and arrors, would be terrible indeed. And hostilely faced by men armed with the muzzle-loading smooth-bores of small calibre and still smaller penetration, he would be an antagonist but slightly less formidable. These things being so, it is scarcely to be wondered at that our predecessors overlooked two salient features of ther experiences: first, that they were themselves invariably the attacking party; and second, that, even so, for every bear that stayed to fight them, there were one or more that ran away. To sum up, then, it seems to be beyond doubt that a century's contact with men armed with rifles has rendered the grizzly bear a more wary and cautious animal. It would indeed be strange if this were not so, for the grizzly is quick to learn and has had innumerable opportunities of learning; and there have been thirty or forty generations during which his individual lessons have been moulding the instinct of the race. But that, during this time, the grizzly has changed from a bloodthirsty and ferocious tyrant to an inoffensive minder of his own business, "defensive, not aggressive," I can find nothing in the records to show, nor do I for a moment believe.
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Post by brobear on Mar 23, 2017 18:23:51 GMT -5
news.discovery.com/animals/arctic...151217.htm Polar bears are the largest of all bear species, while the grizzlies that live on Alaska’s North Slope are the smallest brown bears in that state — some no bigger than the black bears that try to break into garbage cans on the hillsides around Anchorage. So should the two ever encounter each other, the seal-eating denizens of Arctic ice might be expected to have the advantage, right? Actually, not so much. In fact, according to a recent study, not at all. In an article for Alaska Dispatch News, Yereth Rosen spoke with Susanne Miller of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, who explained that diminishing amounts of summer and fall sea ice in the southern Beaufort Sea off the North Slope have forced polar bears to spend more time ashore, grabbing whatever food they can on land. Among their targets are bowhead whale scraps left by Inupiat whalers on the shore by villages such as Kaktovik. Miller and colleagues resolved to study the polar bears that visited these “bone piles” to see if they could ascertain any behavioral changes as a result of not being on the sea ice; but, she told Rosen, they soon found they had a problem: Grizzly bears got in the way. “Brown bears just showed up and polar bears left,” she said. The North Slope is not an area of high brown bear concentration, and the grizzlies that do live there tend to be smaller than those farther south; conditions are much harsher and food rarer than in many other parts of the species’ range, and the bears generally depend on plants and a smattering of mostly lean prey animals. So a concentration of fatty whale remnants is a welcome indulgence that naturally attracts grizzlies in the area as it does polar bears. But because the arrival of the former frequently meant the departure of the latter, Miller and her colleagues switched the focus of their study to the interspecies interactions around the bone pile. The scientists observed a total of 137 encounters between the two bear species, polar bears reacted submissively, even though the grizzlies did not obviously act aggressively toward them; in roughly 50 percent of the encounters, grizzlies displaced the polar bears completely, writes Rosen, even though, in Miller’s words, “they look like they’re about half the size of the polar bears.” The reason why can perhaps be determined from differences in the two species’ behavior and ecology. Brown bears are naturally territorial, fiercely defending areas that have food and females from interlopers whose areas have less of either. Polar bears are not, given that they inhabit a constantly shifting mosaic of ice floes. Indeed, although polar bear males will occasionally cannibalize cubs, and older males will display dominance over younger ones should they converge at a kill, instances of intraspecific aggression in polar bears are rare — outside of mating season, when males will fight ferociously over females. One of the study’s co-authors, Richard Shideler of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, told Rosen that, “I think it’s attitude … (Grizzlies are) more aggressive in terms of bear-bear interaction.” Scent, however, may also play a role, with Miller noting that even a brown bear carcass on the bone pile was enough to spook some polar bears. As well as being an intriguing insight into bear behavior, the study is particularly relevant given that decreasing sea ice means that polar bears are likely to spend greater time ashore along the North Slope and to come into greater contact with grizzlies, and perhaps into competition with them, in the future.
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Post by brobear on Mar 24, 2017 2:32:10 GMT -5
Tracking Gobi Grizzlies My wife, Karen Reeves, spent several summers managing a hike-in chalet high in the Glacier Park backcountry. One year, a spell of rain wrapped the heights in heavy clouds, hiding the spectacular topography from sight for days. One of the guests, a woman with an infant child, grew more and more restless as the storm kept its shroud over the land. At last, she decided that, rain or no rain, view or no view, she and her husband were going to get out on the trail to a pass south of the chalet. The high point was barely a mile distant, but the route was steep. By the time the couple negotiated the pass and started through the alpine meadows beyond, their baby had grown hungry. Picking out a level spot, the woman sat, opened her jacket, and began to suckle the child amid veils of mist. As the baby nursed, the parents took more notice of their surroundings. They became aware of an occasional break in the fog. Then out of the swirls stepped a grizzly. Coming from the opposite side of the pass, the bear was no more than forty or fifty yards away, well within the zone where a startled bear may reflexively attack. Not only was this a grizz, it was the kind said to be the one you least want to meet at close quarters: a mother with young. She had two cubs at her heels. The bear noticed the people at almost the same time. She stopped walking, swiveled to check on her offspring, and turned back to stare directly at the parents and child again. After what must have felt like an awfully long pause, this grizzly made its move. She plonked down on her hindquarters, gathered the cubs up onto her lap, and began nursing them. Maybe it was the smell of the other mammal's milk that inspired her; maybe something else. I don't remember Karen relating how long the mothers sat there on the pass, not far from one another, nursing their babies. I only remember hearing that after the young were fed and content, the two females rose and went their separate ways.
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Post by brobear on Mar 24, 2017 2:32:47 GMT -5
Like in the story of David and Goliath, the big strong guy does not always defeat the little guy.
The Great Bear Almanac by Gary Brown... "... I have sat and watched a grizzly bear and a little porcupine feeding side by side on the grass near the snow banks," wrote William Wright in The Grizzly Bear, "neither one paying the slightest attention to the other."
"One day I watched an old bear, which was feeding in a swale, stop feeding and watch a porcupine that came waddling over a knoll only a few steps away," observed Adolph Murie. "This bear knew porcupines and permitted it's detour to one side."
Bears are occasionally found with face and paws filled with porcupine quills, which may lead to infections and the inability to eat, with subsequent starvation. Ernest Thompson Seton described an emaciated dead bear with lips and mouth terribly swollen and "bristling with quills."
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