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Bear Size ~
Bear Size ~
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Bear Size ~
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 (01-07-2016, 05:39 AM)Pckts Wrote: Are those scores simply from hunting records only? Neither skull size nor footprint size proves which bear is the bigger bear even among same species. Yes, the polar bear is the largest living bear with the Kodiak bear running a very close second; close enough to make the comparison debatable. Diet and food intake is the number one key to bear size and what could possibly put more size on a bear than seal, walrus, and whale blubber?
The Grizzly Almanac by Robert H. Busch.
Perhaps the most colorful taxonomic description of all came from biologist Theodore Walker, who once said that "the grizzly, of course, is nothing more than an underfed Alaskan brown bear."
The Grizzly Book by Jack Samson.
San Francisco was aswarm with odd characters and filled with strange sites during the second half of the last century; nothing seemed capable of surprising its citizenry much. Yet when in the fall of 1856, a tall, gray-bearded man took to strolling down the streets with a grizzly bear or two trailing at his heels like obedient dogs, the free-wheeling city took immediate notice. They soon learned that the man's name was James Adams, and they began to flock to a dingy basement on Clay Street where he exhibited chained grizzlies and elk in a stall, as well as wolves, foxes, cougars, and other wild creatures. The most imposing resident of the menagerie was Samson, a 1,510 pound grizzly which Adams billed as the largest bear ever caught. A Solitary Beast by Michael Jenkinson.
Just how big can a Kodiak bear grow to be? I believe that 1500 pounds is probably a normal maximum seldom reached. Bart the Bear and a few other captive Kodiaks have reached this peak. The heaviest recorded wild Kodiak weighed 1656 pounds ( 751 kg ). However, as I would estimate maybe one out of perhaps a thousand male 10+ year old Kodiaks are ever actually weighed, I would not say that this was the biggest ever Kodiak bear living in the wild.
As for captive bears, there was a 15 year old Kodiak in the Cheyenne Mountain Zoological Park that was weighed at 1670 pounds ( 757 kg ). Even bigger were Goliath which was reportedly weighed in 1983 at 2000 pounds and Clyde which was reportedly weighed in 1987 at 2136 pounds. http://shaggygod.proboards.com/board/66/kodiak-brown-bear-coastal
@Polar, what information would you like to post concerning polar bear size? What would you say is basically the average weight of a mature male polar bear? - the normal maximum ( not over-the-top ) weight? Also, the heaviest ever weighed.
The Grizzly Book by Jack Samson - A Gallery of outlaw Grizzlies by W.P.Hubbard - Old Mose 1882 - 1904.
Ranchers living in the Black Mountain country near Canon City never tire of telling stories of Old Mose, a grizzly bear killed on Waugh Mountain near the Stirrup Ranch. Old Mose roamed the stockmen's land, tore down their fences, killed thousands of dollars' worth of cattle and even killed their friend. He was credited with being one of the largest grizzlies ever killed in the Rocky Mountains. J.W.Anthony of Indiana killed the bear April 30th, 1904. He owned a pack of thirty well-trained bear dogs. He was visiting at the Stirrup Ranch then owned by the late Wharton H. Pigg. Killed shortly after coming out of hibernation, Old Mose was not as heavy as he was known to have been in other seasons. At that, he weighed 875 pounds, hog dressed. A clipping from the Canon City Record at that time says: "The skin of Old Mose measures ten feet four inches in length and nine feet across the shoulders."
The biggest polar bear ever killed, weighed, and measured by hunters reportedly stood 11 feet 1 and a half inches tall and weighed 2,210 pounds. The heaviest polar bear to be weighed by scientists proved to weigh 1,541 pounds ( 699 kg ). Giving an average weight is tricky and seldom accurate, but I have read that the average weight of a mature male polar bear is roughly 900 pounds. As you can clearly see, the size difference between Kodiak bear and polar bear is minimal.
http://shaggygod.proboards.com/board/77/ursus-maritimus
Size & Weight. Male polar bears weigh about 375-600 kilograms (825-1320 pounds) while occasional individuals may reach 800 kilograms (1760 lb). They sometimes exceed 250 centimeters (10 feet) in length, measured in a straight line from the tip of the nose to the tip of the tail, although most male polar bears are a bit shorter. They are roughly twice the size and weight of adult females, which weigh 200 to 350 kilograms (440-750 lb) and achieve an adult body length of about 190-220 centimeters (up to about 7 ft). Females first breed at four to six years of age and most often give birth to two cubs in snow dens on land (some cubs are born in dens on the sea ice). Cubs stay with their mothers for two and a half years before weaning which means that unless cubs die prematurely, females do not breed more frequently than every three years. Both sexes live twenty to twenty-five years and sometimes to over 30 years. Their primary prey is ringed seals and, to a lesser degree, bearded seals.
Reading from the site given in post #16, you will discover that the largest polar ever killed and weighed is not on the Boone and Crockett records. His skull was not intact. There have been only a few polar bears to weigh in at 2,000 pounds. Also, this bear was mounted in an unnatural stance giving it more height. Nevertheless, this bear was a giant of his species. He was heavier than the largest recorded Kodiak bear.
The Grizzly Book by Jack Samson - A Gallery of outlaw Grizzlies by W.P. Hubbard - Red Robber 1880 - 1885.
The earliest authentic and verifiable record containing details of a livestock-killing grizzly with a reward on his head appears in 1881, although his activity began in 1880. The Red Robber, weighing about 900 pounds, was larger than the average grizzly of his locality. He was considered a color freak. His long hair was rusty red with a buff-yellow stripe, about six inches wide, running down the center of his back from midneck to rump. The tips of his hair was frosty white.  (01-08-2016, 06:09 PM)brotherbear Wrote: @Polar, what information would you like to post concerning polar bear size? What would you say is basically the average weight of a mature male polar bear? - the normal maximum ( not over-the-top ) weight? Also, the heaviest ever weighed. The average modern polar bear has a very diverse weight just like brown bears ( but not as low as 250 pounds, polar bear weight variations start at 750 pounds) among populations (Foxe Basin, Churchill, Kotzebue, Baffin Island populations), and I estimate their average weight to be about 1160 pounds from all 21 polar bear populations. Very few reach 1300 pounds (normal maximum) and those that do (according to weight/total length equations) are usually 11'1'' tall (on hind legs) on average. I don't know the validity of the 2210 pound specimen (whether it was weighed immediately after death or after getting taxidermy), but I am 100% sure that there should be a specimen that's greater than be one posted by Guate, possibly a 1800 pounder at most (within a good habitat with plenty of large, numerous prey and less competition per male.) 
I think brown bear can kill a polar bear .Some brown bears are stronger than polar bears.
I've only been up to the Arctic/Sub-Arctic twice (2008 and 2013, respectively): one for a Coca-Cola volunteering program and another one for a Polar Bear International tour, and to be honest, I never had much interest in these animals before then like I definitely do now. One population of polar bears I would like to remark about would be the Foxe Basin Polar Bear. This habitat contains very diverse and large prey (belugas and walrus reserves on ice flows), and prey migration during the summer (apparently one of the safest ways Bowhead whales can take due to extreme water depth; less chances for other carnivores to ambush whale calves above water), as a result, the polar bear population thrives here. Here, the polar bears are huge. They usually weigh on the uppermost part of the polar bear's average weight (1150-1250 pounds).
One thing I noticed is that they look more like their brown bear counterparts in facial structure and robusticity than polar bears of other populations (I've visited the Churchill population during my 2008 trip, and the Foxe Basin and inner Baffin population in 2013.) They look more like their ancient predecessors, the Pleistocene Polar Bears. From what I saw (47 males old and young, 28 females), most of them possessed curved foreheads, the young ones had such a thicker chest for a polar bear of the same age in other populations, and all of them had a very wide skull relative to their skull length. The Foxe Basin populations of polar bears might be an exact redefinition of the Pleistocene Polar Bear, just smaller. (01-10-2016, 04:25 AM)Rajajhc Wrote: I think brown bear can kill a polar bear .Some brown bears are stronger than polar bears. The big brownies, such as the Kodiaks and Kamchatkas never come face-to-face with polar bears. The polar bear rules as the apex predator in his icy realm. The grizzly is the monarch of his own domain. (01-10-2016, 04:25 AM)Rajajhc Wrote: I think brown bear can kill a polar bear .Some brown bears are stronger than polar bears. At weight parity, I agree that a brown bear has better chances of winning a face-off between the two. However, taking that the average polar bear is larger (1160 pounds among all populations' average weights) than the average coastal Kamchatkan (800 pounds), Alaskan (850 pounds), or Kodiak brown bear (950 pounds), I would take the polar bear's chances. I bet on the polar bear with a 100-pound weight advantage among the two. Brotherbear and Ursus at CarnivoraForums had data on both of the animals' respective strengths; the brown bear notably having greater pushing and abducting strength due to it's "shoulder hump" and elbow flexibility over the polar bear, yet the polar bear has greater pulling and adducting strength due to its larger biceps and forearms, and it's elbow muscle attachments provide a greater lever in forearm movements while the upper arm remains stationary. However, at weight parity, the brown bear is still the stronger of the two also due to its leg strength (increased back-kicking strength). Neck-wise, the polar bear has a stronger neck for pulling/tugging prey out of the water while the brown bear has a stronger neck for shaking and distilling lateral (horizontal) forces. Considering all forces applied in all vectors of direction, the brown bear is stronger and more powerful at equal weights. |
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