Alaskan Brown BearĪlaskan brown bears are the largest brown bears and require a very high caloric intake of food. Grizzly bears spend most of their time feeding, eating up to 30 pounds of food per day to store fat for the winter. ( Read more about grizzly bear recovery and conservation in Yellowstone.) Grizzlies will also scavenge meat, when available, from elk and bison carcasses or road kill. In the fall, whitebark pine seeds are a preferred food for grizzly bears the reduction of whitebark pine due to white pine blister rust and other factors may influence grizzly cub production and survival. They eat a variety of plants, including pine nuts, berries, grasses, glacier lilies, roots, bulbs, tubers, and dandelions.
Their long claws and strong shoulders allow them dig efficiently for food. They are effective predators and prey on vulnerable animals such as elk calves and spawning trout, or small mammals and insects. Grizzly bears in Yellowstone eat a wide variety of foods. So please remember: No matter where you are, don’t feed the bears! Help keep them wild by following these tips on food storage and bear safety. Bears who are fed by humans may begin to associate people with food, and this can become dangerous. "But if you look at our data, it's really not that unusual.Brown bears are very intelligent, curious, and skilled at finding food. "It always generates a lot of interest when we have these observations of bears already out of their den at this time of year," van Manen said. While it's unusual for an individual bear to leave its den this early in the year, it's less uncommon statistically that a bear or two across the population will emerge early in any given season, van Maren said. A study co-authored by Gunther co-authored found that about 5 percent of Yellowstone's male bears left their dens during the first week of February between 19. While the first week of March is generally when most male bears begin to merge, some historical data indicates that it's not too uncommon, van Manen said. In the Yellowstone bear's case, the bear may have smelled the carcass, prompting it to leave. It's not uncommon for males to venture out when temperatures warm, van Manen said. "It's very well possible this bear goes back into its den if the weather conditions substantially change."īased on descriptions of the bear, Gunther said, it's likely an adult male, which usually emerges from a den earlier than adult females and cubs. "In a way, their body condition tells them whether they can afford to emerge and be active or not," Frank van Manen, an ecologist with the US Geological Survey and head of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team, told VICE News. Warm weather, melting snow, and a bear's individual health can all affect when it ends its hibernation and leaves the den. Historically, temperatures in the area this time of year could still be reaching 20 to 30 degrees below zero.Ģ014 was the hottest year ever recorded.
There have been many days where temperatures reached into the 40s, and a few in the 50s, Gunther said. "But definitely in recent years we've had warmer winter temperatures." "I've worked here maybe 32 years, and a couple of times I've seen bears or bear tracks out in February," Gunther told VICE News. This year, temperatures have been so warm that plants are starting to emerge in some areas of the park. They generally emerge in early March and feed on carcasses of animals that died from the cold or were killed by wolves. Their thick fur and body fat makes them well equipped to handle cold temperatures, but the snow-packed winter months mean frozen ground and none of the roots, berries, and grasses the omnivores eat. Yellowstone is home to about 655 grizzlies, which hibernate in the winter months when food becomes scarce. Read more: - YellowstoneNPS February 10, 2015 Several grizzlies have also been spotted beyond the park's boundaries in Montana and Wyoming.īlame the relatively mild winter weather for the early emergence of bears in the Greater Yellowstone area. Certainly springlike temperatures, almost summerlike temperatures." "But this year, lately, it's been unseasonably warm. "We have had bears observed in February before, in a few other years," Kerry Gunther, Yellowstone National Park's bear management biologist, told VICE News.
0 kommentar(er)
