Russian Brown Bears

[brotherbear]

The smell of a bear is so strong that dogs can smell it at a distance of a few dozen yards, and it is hard to ride a horse over a bear's tracks. I cannot determine the longevity of the bear, but I suppose that it can live for many years. G. Brehm reports that, in captivity, bears have lived up to 50 years, and one 31 year-old female gave birth to young. In 1885, near the Shilka factory in the Nerchinks Mountain District, one hunted bear was so old that he could not fight back. He was killed like a calf. His teeth and claws were completely worn out, and he did not have any fat on his carcass. This bear could not make a winter den, and instead laid between two rock ledges under a cliff, where he was killed in the fall, before the snow cover was established. His coat was very bad; its hair was reddish, thin, and hanging in mats; his skin was thin, and easily torn.

Everybody knows that bears go into hibernation in dens for the winter, where they sleep, remaining keen, until the warm season. There is a belief among some people that the bear sucks his paw while he hibernates, and this is how he gets his nourishment during the winter. I do not believe this, because I have many facts disproving it: I have never heard of a promyshlenniks that killed a bear in its den with wet paws; on the contrary, their paws were always dry and thick with dust and even dirt on the claws, which had remained there from before it went into hibernation. I would like to know how a gentleman naturalist would explain this? The majority of Siberian promyshlenniks do not believe it. Reply