Russian Brown Bears

[brotherbear]

It is very rare for a female bear to give birth to young after she had left her den; this would happen only if March was very warm, and the bears left their dens before the normal time, or when something had driven the mother bear out of her den. In such a case the mother makes a soft nest, a logovo, or gaino, as Siberians call it, in a remote and hard-to-access place; when the cubs are born, she will not leave the nest until they open their eyes and become strong enough to walk.

In the beginning, the mother feeds her cubs with milk out of her teats, of which she has two, near her front legs. If she gives birth to cubs in the den, she remains there until they open their eyes, and then she leads them to a specially prepared nest. This is why male bears leave their dens sooner than females. Anyway, the mother bear does not take her cubs with her for a long time, but keeps them in the nest. When they grow up and become stronger, she leads them everywhere. Therefore, people see female bears with cubs from May onwards. A female bear is smaller and more agile than a male bear and her character is milder, but when she is with her cubs, she will attack anything. She knows no fear and doesn't care about her own life. At any sign of danger, the cubs climb a tree, and the older cubs, born in the previous summer, follows them. The mother moves forward against anything that might have frightened them. It is rare for cubs to run away, with the mother following them, without her paying attention to what they had encountered. Reply