Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
than grizzlies to charge people at a distance. There are sites in Alaska, closely monitored to prevent
people from straying too close, where the public can observe and photograph enormous brownies fish-
ing for salmon. These sites are located at distances from the bears that would be far too short to con-
template with inland grizzlies.
While black bears are adept at climbing trees, brown bears, whether inland grizzly or coastal
brownie, lack that ability. Thus trees, if available, can sometimes offer safety from bear attacks, and
more than one person has survived a grizzly attack by seeking refuge in a tree.
Size also sharply differentiates the two divisions of the brown bear population. On average, grizzlies
are substantially larger than black bears, but much smaller than coastal brownies: adult grizzlies weigh
from three hundred to nine hundred pounds or more, but some of the giant coastal brown bears exceed
1,500 pounds.
This major difference in size is attributed in large measure to diet: while grizzlies eat substantially
more meat than black bears, coastal brown bears have a far more meat-rich diet than either. Grizzlies
prey on deer fawns and elk calves, and also dig a variety of small rodents out of the ground. At times,
they also fatten on huge hatches of army cutworm moths, which swarm under rocks, or devour large
groups of ladybird beetles. Still, grizzlies lack a steady supply of meat.
Coastal brown bears, on the other hand, have access to most of the same food sources available to
the inland grizzly, plus several other incredibly rich supplies of meat. In particular, there's the annual
spawning run of salmon, but the ocean also casts up such savories as dead or injured seals and whales.
In sum, the coastal brownies have access to an abundance undreamed of by grizzlies.
Brown bears, like black bears, usually give birth to two or three cubs in a litter, but, unlike black
bears, they only breed every third year, so that the cubs remain with their mother for two and a half
years. The cubs are born in a den, which in the case of most grizzlies is at a rather high altitude—six
thousand to seven thousand feet. Often the bears create dens by digging into steep slopes. They also ex-
cavate beneath huge logs or utilize caves if they're available. Coastal brown bears, for obvious reasons,
den at much lower altitudes, but their denning sites and habits are otherwise like those of grizzlies.
Another difference between the two subspecies is color. As its common name indicates, the coastal
brown bear varies from light to medium brown. The grizzly, on the other hand, is darker and has white
tips on the hairs of its back, in particular. This intermingling of dark and white presents the grizzled
aspect from which the bear gets its name.
The coastal brown bears, and the inland grizzlies of Alaska and Canada, seem to be holding their
own in most areas. Grizzlies in the lower forty-eight states are another matter. Relentlessly persecuted
for years, like the wolves, grizzlies have been reduced to a small fraction of their former numbers and
range in the American West.
As previously mentioned, the only two major concentrations of inland grizzlies in the lower forty-
eight states are in and around the Yellowstone and Glacier National Park systems. Now, however, the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service hopes to reintroduce grizzlies into the Selway-Bitterroot area along the
