Brown Bear

About the Brown Bear

The brown bear is one of the most widely distributed bears in the world, found across Eurasia and North America in forms that differ enormously — from the Eurasian brown bears of European forest to the coastal giants of Alaska and Kamchatka. Size tracks food supply closely, and a bear with access to salmon grows far larger than one living on berries and roots.

How it lives

Brown bears are omnivores whose diet is mostly vegetable — grasses, herbs, roots, nuts and above all berries in the autumn, when they eat almost continuously to build the fat reserve that carries them through winter. They dig extensively for roots and burrowing rodents, and that digging turns over soil at a scale that measurably affects plant communities. Winter is spent in a den in a dormant state, with body temperature dropping only modestly, and cubs are born during it. Bears learn food sources from their mothers and return to them for life.

Where it lives

Roams forests and mountains, fattening up before winter sleep. Its main habitat is the European Woodlands, where the climate is mild, temperate seasons with cool rain and gentle summers.

Notable facts

• Found across Europe, Asia and North America.
• It can run as fast as a horse over short bursts.
• It hibernates for up to half the year.

Conservation

Globally the brown bear is of least concern with a large total population, concentrated in Russia, North America and Scandinavia. The picture in western and southern Europe is very different, where small isolated populations in the Pyrenees, the Alps and central Italy number in the tens and depend on active management. Conflict over livestock, beehives and orchards, and the presence of bears near settlements, drive most of the killing.

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