Another brown bear

Grizzlies ARE brown bears, which I hadn't realized, until today when I started looking up information on brown bears.

A subspecies of brown bear is the Kodiak. The other day I thought I was starting with the largest bear, when I talked about the polar bear, but a website I came across today said the Kodiak is the largest. (So, I never said I was an expert!) A Kodiak bear on its hind legs can be over 10 feet tall! They're 5 feet when on all fours. Yikes! I’m only 5’ 4” . . .

Kodiak bears are omnivores, who actually spend more time eating grass, plants and berries than meat and fish. Speaking of fish, here’s one of my favorite “bear” videos.


Jungle Jane

No close encounters, thank you very much

The grizzly bear is sometimes called the silvertip bear, and, is known for its massive size. Males can weigh up to 1,500 pounds and stand 8 feet tall on their hind legs. Females are almost half that size. The ones in the states aren’t usually this large, but in Canada and Alaska they get really big! The hump on their back which makes them so recognizable is a set of muscles for digging.

I remember grizzly bear stories that my seventh grade teacher (formerly of Montana) told. What stuck in my mind was how he told us when hiking you don’t want to accidentally sneak up on a grizzly by walking too quietly, so some hikers carried bells or made sure to talk loud enough to give bears time to move out of sight of the path. So today I did some research on what works and here’s a good site: http://www.yellowstone-bearman.com/b_spray.html

My reaction to all this is don’t hike in bear country! In fact videos like this one are good enough for me. . .

JJ