Russian Brown Bears

[Apex Titan]

(01-15-2023, 04:25 PM)GreenGrolar Wrote:

(11-03-2022, 08:17 PM)Apex Titan Wrote: Ussuri brown bear carrying the head of a deer calf (Northeast China Tiger and Leopard National Park):

*This image is copyright of its original author

This is another rare sight :). I also think this is a good thread to discuss Russian brown bear weights etc. The founder of Siberian Tiger Project measured the paw print width of a kamkatcha brown bear to be 18.5 cm yet in a chart which I posted in the big cat and bear tale thread in this link:

https://wildfact.com/forum/topic-big-cat...#pid183709

it seems that even a 600 kg male Ussuri brown bear (only one recorded with that weight) has a 18cm paw width not much different from the 16.5 cm male Ussuri brown bear at 270kg. Perhaps the kamkatcha brown bear has proportionately wider paws.

Those bear weights and paw measurements (600 kg, 270 kg - 18 cm, 16.5 cm) belonged to East Siberian brown bears, not Ussuri bears.

Here's some information on the weights of Kamchatka and Ussuri brown bears. Ussuri brown bears and Kamchatka brown bears are the largest subspecies of brown bears in Russia, and larger than all other brown bear subspecies in Eurasia:

MAIN MORPHOMETRIC CHARACTERISTICS OF BROWN BEARS IN KAMCHATKA AND SAKHALIN

From other regions, representatives of the Ussuri subspecies living in the south of the Far East have large sizes comparable to those of Kamchatka bears. V.G. Yudin notes that individuals up to 450 kg are found in Primorsky Krai.

The main morphometric parameters, primarily body weight and length, in Kamchatka bears turned out to be higher than in other regions, which gives reason to consider Kamchatka brown bears the largest in Eurasia. An additional study requires the morphometric characteristics of brown bears living in the Sikhote-Alin, which are comparable in size to Kamchatka bears. The brown bears of Sakhalin are somewhat inferior in size to the animals from Kamchatka, but, nevertheless, they are large and outnumber the bears from most other parts of their range. Thus, brown bears living in Sakhalin and especially in Kamchatka have a high trophy value and are a valuable resource for the development of hunting and tourism in these regions.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication...D_SAKHALIN


Ussuri brown bears and Kamchatka brown bears are both very similar-sized bear species. Both can attain the same maximum weights, except that Ussuri brown bears are more aggressive and predatory than Kamchatka bears.

From Russian bear specialist and hunting biologist - Mikhail Krechmar

Beyond the Urals, Primorsky Krai and Kamchatka have long been considered the focus of huge bears. Back in the middle of the last century, it was written about Kamchatka: "Black bears are found throughout Kamchatka in huge numbers, and without any doubt they would have exterminated the inhabitants long ago if they were not so meek and peaceful as anywhere else." “Huge bears come across along the coast of the bay (Peter the Great. - M.K.) at every verst, horrifying the soldiers with their height and furry appearance.” “The giant bears of Kamchatka are peaceful and herbivorous…” “The bears I met here undoubtedly belong to the greatest and most fearsome tribe of these animals, next to which the bears of Thuringia would seem like a Cocker Spaniel between the legs of a wolfhound…”

The most surprising thing about all these tales is that in the scientific literature we do not find confirmation of such vivid impressions of travelers of the past. In the most exhaustive summary, Terrestrial Vertebrates of Eastern Kamchatka, the thoughtful researcher Yuri Averin gives measurements for more than twenty killed bears. The largest weight of the Kamchatka bear, according to his data, was 185 kilograms, females - 176. In the south of the Far East, detailed work on bears - brown and white-breasted - was carried out by Gordey Fedorovich Bromley. His largest male pulled 321 kilograms, the female - 199.

https://www.livelib.ru/book/147686/readp...rechmar/~8

According to the weight data mentioned by Krechmar, the largest male and female Ussuri brown bears (321 kg, 199 kg) were larger than the largest male and female Kamchatka brown bears (185 kg, 176 kg) in those samples. Reply