Brown Bears (Info, Pics and Videos)

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Yellowstone Bears in the Wild by James C. Halfpenny.

Brown Bear vs Grizzly Bear: What's In a Name?
What was that "white bear" shot by Peter Crusat of the Lewis and Clark Expedition? Was it a grizzly bear or a brown bear? Is there a difference?
Long before North American explorers encountered the grizzly bear, a similar bear in Europe and Asia was called a "brown bear." Its scientific name was Ursus arctos and, technically, all North American grizzlies are "brown bears" belonging to the species Ursus arctos.
But the bear encountered by Lewis and Clark became known as the "grizzly" in reference to its silver-tipped or "grizzled" hairs. In 1815 George Ord even provided a scientific name for the grizzly, Ursus horribilis, thus setting the stage for a controversy which often rages today.
The name controversy was further complicated by an explosion of scientific names for North American brown/grizzly bears. As the continent was explored, early biologists were certain that slightly different colors, and shapes meant a different species, and they often proclaimed a new species name. By 1917 the great naturalist C. Hart Merriam reported 86 or 87 species and subspecies of grizzly bears and brown bears in North America.
Indeed, hunters and biologists did recognize that different forms of the bears were found on the islands and coastlines of Alaska than were found in the interior of the continent. In some places ( mostly on Alaska's islands and coastal areas ) the bears were commonly called brown bears, and in other places ( mostly in Alaska's interior and in the Lower 48 and Canada ) the bears were called grizzlies. While the name implied different species, the bears themselves did not see a difference. They could and did interbreed - often, regularly, and successfully - thereby eliminating a popular if imperfect criterion for separating species.
In 1963 Bjorn Kurten, paleontologist and mammologist of Pleistocene and Recent mammals, examined more bear skulls than anyone ever before, and based on identifiable breaks in a series of skull measurements, he concluded there were only three subspecies of Ursus arctos: the interior grizzly, U. arctos horribilis ( the horrible bear ); the coastal brown bears, U. arctos dalli; and the Kodiak bears, U. arctos middendorffi. This classification is useful for communicating about recognizably different "subspecies," but new DNA evidence shows hybridization between these subspecies and a blurring of linesin some areas. Future taxonomic research may result in new subspecies names.
It is correct to say that Crusat's bear was a grizzly, and it is correct to call all Ursus arctos bears in the interior of North America, grizzly bears. Just remember that grizzlies are a subset of the brown bears of the world and, as such, are also brown bears. Reply