There is a world somewhere between reality and fiction. Although ignored by many, it is very real and so are those living in it. This forum is about the natural world. Here, wild animals will be heard and respected. The forum offers a glimpse into an unknown world as well as a room with a view on the present and the future. Anyone able to speak on behalf of those living in the emerald forest and the deep blue sea is invited to join.
Tracking Gobi Grizzlies.
As the days warmed, I found the desert's ordinarily quiet surface becoming more and more animated by the scuttlings of toad-headed agama lizards three to six inches long, ground beetles, and other insects. I often noticed as many as half a dozen wingless grasshoppers within a few yards once I honed my search image for them a bit during strolls. Resembling pudgy flightless crickets, they walked slowly and were easy to catch. From a passing bear's point of view, it would be as though somebody had randomly scattered nougats with a protein content on par with red meat across the desert floor. To the bears' plant diet, I could now add some amount of the following animals: carabid and tenebrionid beetles, ants, and wingless grasshoppers. Schaller and Miji had identified lizards, gerbils, hamsters, jerboas, and other, unidentified rodents in mazaalai scat along with an assortment of remains scavenged from ungulate carcasses.
Bit by bit, pawprint by digging crater by turd speckled with beetle shells or grasshopper legs, I was beginning to form a mental picture of real grizzly bears moving through Thirstland from one source of concentrated food to another. Were there enough such sources to be found from early spring through late fall? Amgaa summed up the answer simply and, I think, best. He wasn't speaking of a year or even a few years. He was talking about the long run when he said, "if the weather is good, the bears will survive. If the climate is changing so the weather is not good...."
Bears of the Himalayan Mountains
