Last Updated: Friday, August 11, 2006 2:40 PM CDT
Trespassing in Bear Country
by Roger Sabota - Northwoods Notebook
A grizzly tale from the wild west
As mentioned last week the topic to dwell upon this week is bears. On our route to Yellowstone National Park and the Grand Tetons we were constantly reminded that we were trespassing in bear country. At rest areas along the highways in Wyoming we would see signs on the refuse containers alerting us to the fact that we were in “Bear Country.”
The warning always included instructions that all refuse must be placed in the so-called bear proof containers.
As we neared Cody, Wyoming, the bear warning signs changed and that change remained constant until we got to the Jackson, Wyoming area. The big change was that the signs now read, “Warning. This is Grizzly Country.”
The thought that we were in an area where grizzly bears lived gave both of us a different feeling. As mentioned last week we participated in several Ranger programs on our trip and one of them focused on bears of the region.
The good news is that across the Yellowstone Eco System grizzly bears are making a comeback. Grizzly bears are native to much of the Northern Hemisphere making them the most widely distributed of all bears. Today the grizzly bears south of Canada number only 600 to 800 animals.
This population is restricted primarily to pockets of wilderness centered in and around Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks. In the lower 48 states the grizzly is listed as threatened and is gone from 98 percent of the land it once roamed.
How much a grizzly weighs depends on genetics, age, sex, season and available foods. In the lower 48 states an adult male grizzly will average between 400 and 600 pounds while females weigh between 250 to 350 pounds. Although these average weights seem quite small one huge male in Yellowstone weighed 1,120 pounds. The grizzly bears along the Alaska coast frequently weigh in excess of 1,000 pounds.
Most grizzly bears are dark brown but the color can range from black to light yellow or almost white. Young bears may be a different color than their mothers and littermates may have a variety of colors.
We participated in a bear identification exercise at the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center and found that we had trouble distinguishing whether a bear was a black bear or a grizzly. The hump on the back can be misleading.
The fur coat on a grizzly bear conserves body heat in winter and traps it in summer. During the heat of the day they will frequently retire to a day bed, which is scooped out of dirt at the base of a tree. Bears do not have sweat glands so they must use other methods to keep cool.
An interesting aspect of grizzly bears is their front claws. There are five claws for each foot. The front claws on an adult grizzly are normally 2 to 4 inches in length while a black bear's claws are less than 2 inches long. This is one reason why black bears are better at climbing trees than grizzly bears are. The claws on a grizzly bear are digging tools as well as weapons.
Grizzly bears that escape a violent death may live twenty years or more. Some bears kill each other while some die of old age. In a year when the food crops fail some bears freeze to death in their dens. Researchers are constantly studying grizzly bears to learn how they can hibernate all winter and come out in the spring without losing muscle tone. This research may help our space program as well as some health issues that we humans deal with.
Frequently black bears hibernate in the open, under a fallen tree or in a brush pile. Grizzly bears dig out a place to hibernate where they are protected from the weather.
During late summer bears must begin to lay on fat for the coming winter, sometimes spending up to twenty hours a day eating. One Alaska grizzly was observed while she fed on blueberries for fourteen hours with only a half-hour break for a midday rest.
These giant bears take living prey when they can, but they are not uniformly skilled in hunting and killing. They have strength, agility and intelligence in their favor. In spring, grizzlies catch the calves of bison, elk and moose. A grizzly, good at this business, may kill more elk calves than it can eat. The bear eats what it can from its kill and covers the leftovers with brush to hide the meat for a later meal.
The male and female that form a pair may associate only briefly or travel together for a few days or up to as long as three weeks. The union of male and female does not guarantee the birth of new cubs. In nature, the mother's survival is always of prime importance and the system that has evolved with the bears is a remarkable example. Even though the egg is fertilized and the embryo begins to grow, its future is uncertain. After it divides to about 200 cells and is scarcely visible to the human eye, it stops growing. For the next five or six months, the system is on hold. If the season is one of poor food production, perhaps a disastrous failure of berry crops or the whitebark pine nut crop, and the female's store of fat is low for the approaching winter, she will abort.
As summer winds down and the cold winds blow across grizzly country the big bear's body and daily behavior undergo remarkable changes.
For the past month the bear was an efficient eating machine, adding up to two pounds of body fat daily. Once the bear accumulates enough fat to see it through the winter its hectic pace slows down and the bear crawls into a den to spend the winter.
Tail Feathers
While visiting the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyoming we saw a familiar face. It was good to talk with Ole Marlatt, a former Rhinelander resident who now lives in Florida.
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