Brown bears: good-natured topygins and dangerous rods

Brown bears - a small closed group of order of predatory mammals. They live in mountain forests and taiga. In addition to Russia, they are found in the Atlas Mountains (north of Africa), in Asia and Europe. By the present time, their numbers have decreased and number 125-150 thousand individuals.

Adult animals weigh 75-100 kg. Their body length is on average about 2 m, and at the withers - about 1 m. Under good living conditions, the height can reach up to 140 cm with a length of up to 260 cm and a mass of about 800 kg. Here's how huge a brown bear can grow into. The photo shows them well. The skin is of different shades: from reddish to dark brown.

Unlike many predatory animals brown bears eat and vegetative food. They love roots, young shoots of plants, mushrooms, nuts, berries and can not eat meat for a long time. Although their main food is small rodents, a variety of insects and honey.

It is believed that white and brown bears are clumsy. So you can talk only in the period when they are preparing for hibernation. In the rest of the time they swim well, overcoming strong currents, while the browns also deftly climb the slopes and trees. These predators are able to run for a long time and quickly, pursuing the victim. Forces do not hold bears, they can drag prey weighing 5 quintals several kilometers.

Brown bears have excellent hearing and smell. But they do not see very much, especially fixed objects. They live on average 30-40 years, they can live up to 45 in captivity. They live in certain areas, considering them their property and protecting them from encroachments of strangers.

Make them leave the chosen place can only starve. In search of food, they can go hundreds of kilometers, because to hibernation they need to accumulate up to 10 cm of fat layer, so that it is enough for the entire period of sleep. Hungry brown bears do not go to bed, becoming rods. In such a period, they are very dangerous, they can attack wild animals and even people, wandering around in populated areas.

For the den, brown bears look for deaf places, carefully tangling their own tracks. The first days in the den bear barely slumbered, but not asleep. Winter sleep is shallow and differs from the hibernation of other animals. During sleep, their body temperature drops slightly (only 3-4 degrees), and body weight decreases to about 40%. The duration of hibernation depends on the weather, age and health of the bear. As a rule, they wake up in April.

The cubs of the bear are born in the middle of winter, the females do not wake up at the same time. Babies appear blind, bare, toothless, weighing no more than 0.5 kg. Eating fat milk of the mother, they grow fast enough. By the time they leave the den, they weigh 6-7 kg and have time to grow hair.

Male, leaving the den, begins to actively look for food, gain weight. The dipper behaves quite differently: she finds the food she gives to the kids, no matter how hungry. At the same time, she closely watches whether her offspring are not threatened. All the summer the mother wanders with cubs, teaching the necessary skills. By the fall, the young grow up well, but the cub does not leave the bear. In the next season, when the mother has new cubs, the elders (they are called pestuns) will patronize them. Surprisingly, the family always moves in a certain order: the mother is ahead, the babies are behind it, at the end - the pestune.

Brown bears are known to man since ancient times. However, there are a lot of unexplained issues related to their life. For example, why some individuals are tired of the dens somehow, and others carefully prepare it. Why do some go to sleep in the place where they live, and others go hundreds of kilometers away? Let's hope that answers to these and other questions will be found, and the number of these animals will increase.