Russian Brown Bears

[brotherbear]

The winter sleep of bears is not the same as the hibernation of many other of our animals, such as hedgehogs, frogs, bats, and marmots. A bear never becomes torpid. When in the den, the bear is only half-sleeping, and if he does not see, he hears; one proof of this is the fact that a bear will rush out of the den when the hunters are approaching, even in the middle of the most hostile cold winter, and do it before the hunter can even get ready to attack. It is beyond doubt that bears breathe when in their dens, because when it is very cold, one can see hoar-frost ( kurzhak ), formed by the bear's breath on small bushes and twigs around the entrance. When in the den, the bear "feeds" by using its own body fat which it had accumulated in the fall. A skinny, hungry bear does not go into a den, but keeps wandering in the forest and becomes a shatun.

Bears make their dens in different ways. A bear can make his den in the roots of a fallen tree, or it can dig a deep pit under boulders, rock ledges, etc. A bear can make a bed on the surface of the earth, and cover it with branches and moss. Some bears make their dens between cliffs, in cracks in the cliffs, or in caves. In every den, whenever it is made, bears make bedding out of moss ( shaikta ), make a sort of pillow for their heads, and assume a position with their heads and noses directed towards the entrance. bears choose places that are difficult to access to make their dens, such as in deep valleys, in gorges, or in protected thickets on northern slopes; they very rarely choose to den up in open places. Siberians notice that bears that make their dens in the open, for example, on the sunny side of a slope, are considerably more dangerous than bears that hibernate in well-hidden places. Therefore, when hunting such a bear you must take more precautions. Why they cannot explain, but they say so. I have never had a chance to check if this is true. Here is a case which contradicts this idea. In 1885, two boys from village "B" of Nerchinsk Mountain District were riding home through the forest from an adjacent village. They saw a squirrel on the ground, dismounted, and tried to catch it. They did not catch the squirrel, but strayed far from their horses. When walking back, one of them noticed a black hole on a sunny slope; as he explained later on, curiosity prompted him. He left his younger buddy, climbed the slope, came up to the black opening, lay down and looked into the hole. He saw two big glowing eyes there, got scared and quietly crawled away, looking back over his shoulder until he could run to the horses where his friend was waiting for him. When he came home, he told his father what had happened.

His father understood what it was. He quickly gathered his fellows and they headed to where the boy told them the black hole was. He found a den with a huge bear inside it. They killed the bear in the presence of the boy. because this happened in the fall, when the bear had not yet fallen into its dormancy, its stupidity was surprising, because the bear saw the boy peeking inside, and still did not leave the den after the boy left. This bear did not show a bear's usual caution and prudence. Reply