Russian Brown Bears

[brotherbear]

When the winter temperature drops, the bear plugs the entrance with moss from inside and remains inside until warm weather returns, if nobody disturbs it. It often happens that a dog accidentally finds the den and barks over it for a while. This will drive the bear out of its winter apartment and into another place. In Transbaikalia, it sometimes happens that three or even four bears lie together. They will be either a female with two cubs and a cub born the year before, or one with only two cubs, who grew up well during the past summer. A male bear is always alone in his den. If a mother bear and her cubs are in the den, each has its own bed lined with moss, grass, and twigs. Usually the mother bear lies with her nose near the entrance, and the cubs lay behind her. Bears leave their dens near Lady Day, April 17th or a little earlier or later, depending on how cold or warm the weather. The mother bear gives birth to new cubs inside her den, usually in March and rarely in early April. Young cubs always have a narrow white collar, which loses its whiteness after each shedding and disappears with age. In rare cases, white spots remain on the neck of mature animals. A litter contains one or two cubs, rarely three or even four cubs, which are born blind, but open their eyes in a few weeks. They are small, no bigger then two-week old puppies, which is disproportional to the size of the bear. This is because her "lock", as promyshenniks would say, is very small and cannot widen during birth. Some hunters insist that female bears can give birth to five cubs, but I do not believe this. ( Cases when a female bear gave birth to five and even six cubs are known - Vladimir Beregovoy ). Possibly this belief originated when they saw a mother with five cubs, some of which could have been adopted orphans, whose mother had died. Might it be that two mother bears spent time together with both of their cubs, and a hunter saw the cubs without the "other mother"? I consider these possibilities because no promyshlennik can convince me that he has killed a female bear with so many cubs! However, I know of one occasion when a denning female with two one-year old cubs, two new-born cubs, and one two-year old cub, all of which could be told apart by their size, was killed. Reply

[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

[brotherbear]

Pestuns are cubs of the previous year. Usually a pestun is a single cub, most often a female; a male cub is allowed to stay as a pestun only if the mother bear gave birth to two male cubs. The duty of pestuns is to look after the younger cubs, in the way a nanny cares for babies. One trustworthy hunter, a Tungus, told me that he saw a pestun carry young cubs across the Kashkolik River ( near Fort Kozak at the Chinese border ); the total number of cubs was three. He carried one cub, and the mother carried another. The pestun did not go back to pick up the third cub, and the mother gave him a few slaps for that! Rarely, an old pestun, one born three years before, remains with the mother; locals would call him a tretyak. This happens when the mother remained infertile, and did not give birth to new cubs. Most often, the mother bear drives the tretyaks away as soon as her new cubs are born, leaving only the past year's cubs ( lonchaks ), and most often with only one of them, who chases away the rest with the tretyaks. These lonchaks become real pestuns.

By fall, the cubs become considerably bigger, reaching the size of a big village dog, and can defend themselves. I should point out that cubs, when they climb a tree after being frightened, always take a position on the branches of one side of the tree. If they have to be shot, one must shoot the lower one first. Otherwise the upper cub, in falling, will hit the lower one, which will then fall too and run away. "A beast is a beast" as promyshlenniks say. Indeed, if you have to carry a bear cub on horseback, his legs must be tied, because he will always try to reach the horse with his paw or at least with one claw. Then, even the best promyshlennyi horse will try to throw its rider. Most of the time, the mother bear walks in front, her cubs walk behind her and the pestun walks last, like a chaperon with a noble lady.

If a cub somehow gets into a past ( gap ) trap or into a pit that has been dug for other animals, the mother does not try to get him out at once. Usually, she lays nearby waiting for the owner of the trap, and remains there for several days in a row. In some cases, the mother will take her cub out of a pit, if it is not too deep, and will then cruelly punish him for getting there. However, she cannot free him from a past trap, because she does not know how to lift a fallen log. Therefore, she attempts to pull him away with her claws, which only increases his suffering or kills him. When she realizes her cub is dead, she covers him and the trap with branches, sticks, moss, etc. This is why in spring, in forests inhabited by bears, you must carry a gun while checking your traps. Otherwise you may pay with your life for this mistake, because a mother bear will attack suddenly from ambush. I remember plenty of cases like this. Local promyshlenniks go to check their traps without guns, carrying only an ax or a knife. Even fatal accidents do not make a lazy Siberian more careful! ... Reply

[brotherbear]

The female bear's heat, or gonba as Siberians call it, place in the hottest days of summer, approximately at the time of Saint Peter's Day. Usually, one male courts one female. If a second male shows up at this time, there is big trouble. A savage fight will take place, and the males will fight until one of them become the victor. During the fight, hair flies, blood is spilled, and loud growling fills the air. It sometimes happens that the weaker male is killed. Then, the stronger bear will mate with the female. In some cases both bears are equally strong; then, the female makes the choice.

How much noise, screaming, and growling is heard in the forest during the bear's mating season! In how many places do they trample flowers, grass, and shrubs! Courtship usually takes place in the most impassible and hidden places, often near springs and mountain creeks where it is cooler. During this time, cubs stay away from the scene, walking with the pestun. Otherwise, they would be torn apart by the male bear. During this season, males are always looking for females, and they become very angry if their search does not bring a quick result. They often stand upright, growl, tear the dirt, and rip at bark with their paws so that that it falls down or hangs in shredded ribbons from the tree trunks. Every male tries to reach as high as possible with his claws, leaving his opponents a sign of how big and strong he is. Promyshlenniks call such intimidating bear signs zaskreby and zalaplivaniya. Indeed, a hunter easily notices such marks, which clearly indicates the possibility of meeting such a giant that he shivers to think of it.

Many local promyshlenniks insist that female bear comes into heat not every year, but every other year; this is why they call such female bears "barren." I do not know if this is true, but only retell what I have heard. During the mating season, the bear is very angry and looks like he is rabid. His eyes are dull, and he does not see very well, his tongue is out, he does not eat anything and foam comes out of his mouth ... One time, during Saint Peter's Fasting, such a bear walked onto a worker's camp near Shiliknsky Factory, in the Nerchinsk Mountain District. They were making charcoal. The workers saw the bear and ran away. When the bear heard the screams and commotion, he ran into the kuchenok and burned his feet and one side of his body. Then, one brave worker, Dmitry Kudryavtsev, who was also a ardent promyshlennik, grabbed a rifle out of the balagan and shot in the bear's direction. The bear ran downhill, where another group of workers were staying, and died there in agony near the camp. Reply

[brotherbear]

In the process of copulation, they say, the female lies on her back. I heard this from hunters, who confirmed their stories by telling how bears wallowing on the ground trample grass, stems and whole bushes over a large area. They make such a mess that it is hard to believe if you did not see it for yourself. In such mating places there are always two bedding sites, side by side, with many bear droppings nearby, and also foam, which comes out of the male's mouth when the female is in heat. It happens that some blood may be seen there too, when the female is unreceptive to the male's courting. I have seen such places.

A female bear can suffer wounds caused by the claws and teeth of the male, and it sometimes happens that he kills her. One time I saw a dead female bear in the taiga. Its teats and external genitalia had been eaten. Riding on a little further, we saw a bear slowly walking ahead of us on the forest path. It was emaciated and bleeding, and it probably did not notice us, but when we came closer, it ran away into the thickets. On the next day, when I was riding back on the same path, I did not see the female bear there. We did not see any tracks but our own old ones and a fresh bear's tracks. We suppose that the male bear came back and pulled away the body of his lover at night.

After they emerge from their dens, bears find the so-called "bear root"; this is a bulb growing under rocks and on ledges and mountain slopes. Its taste is sweet, pleasant in the beginning, but then it turns repulsive. It is usually found in bear's leftovers. Locally, it is consumed as a healing remedy against many illnesses. After one has eaten this, he feels relaxed and light, like after a good hot bath, or as though he had been freed from a heavy load. If eaten in large amounts it causes vomiting and diarrhea. Once he has eaten these bulbs, the bear cleanses himself of everything and, most importantly, of so-called vtulk, about which I have more to say later on. The bear then goes to young aspen leaves and eats them with great gusto. Many local hunters say that when a bear eats his fill of these bulbs and leaves, he lies near his den for a few days and sleeps so well that one can come up very close to him without any danger and, as they say, "grab him by his ears." Orochons also say that at this time bears also eat rotten wood, which they get out of old deadfalls. Then the bear forages on blue flowers ( Pulsatilla ) and eats them in large quantities, even running quickly to where he sees the next flower. As a result, he purges himself again, and worms emerge in his nose! ( This is a very dubious statement, according to comments in the end of the book ). This is the worst season for the bear, since at this time he starts shedding and cannot smell anything. It is easy to shoot a bear at this time, but the skin is not valuable. It is good only to make polovinki ( chamois ). After foraging on Pulsatilla, the bear starts eating ants. Then berries ripen, and honey and nuts, which bears like very much. Bears also eat all kinds of meat, both fresh and carrion; they particularly like horse meat; this is their favorite food. In the summer, bears visit lakes, creeks, and swamps, searching in the grass for molting young ducks and chasing them for hours in a row. Sometimes they spend the whole night hunting like this. The bear searches for them like a dog, and crawls and leaps trying to catch them, splashing and making a great noise. One should see what the bear looks like after such hunting; he is very wet, and dirty like a scarecrow ( puzhalo-puzhaloi, as the Siberians say ). Reply

[brotherbear]

A bear's footprint, especially its hind feet, is extremely similar to a human footprint, except his long claws are clearly visible in the dirt. The footprint of a male is slightly wider than the footprint of a female, and a trained hunter can tell a male from a female from their footprints. Tracking a bear is easy even in the summer, because bears tramp the grass, tilting it in the direction where they walk by pulling it with their feet. Besides, a bear never walks indifferently; he is always searching for something. Sometimes he digs an anthill, or turns over boulders, big rocks, logs, windfalls, etc. This is where he shows his amazing strength! Sometimes he turns over whole fallen trees! It is fun to watch how a bear eat ants. When he digs in the anthill, he starts licking his front paws and places them on the anthill. Ants run in every direction and crawl on his paws, and at once become his meal.

Sunset and dawn are the bear's favorite times. They are when he takes off for his adventures and does all kinds of tricks! It is known that when a bear lives in one place for a long time, he uses the same paths for foraging trips. Hunters know this very well, and often catch him there. He also likes to walk on paths made by other animals and by promyshleniks; bear's footprints and droppings are often found on them. Uvals and barren sunny slopes are his favorite sites, especially in the spring. I should say that he walks there from sivers, which means out of the forests on the top of the ridges down onto the steppe. He always stops at the forest's edge, looks carefully around for possible danger, and listens to see if wild boars are nearby, especially a mature tusker boar, which he is afraid of. If he sees a pig with piglets, then he will find a convenient place to sneak closer to them and will start rolling big rocks and windfalls downhill in their direction. Often, he will get some piglets for a snack.

It is surprising that the bear, being a massive, seemingly clumsy animal, excels at stalking and catching any kind of animals, including humans. He does it so skillfully, being quiet and careful, that he even catches young roe deer where they are resting. Sometimes he crawls like a dog, sometimes he leaps like a cat, without breaking a stick. Reply

[brotherbear]

It is dangerous if a bear sights a human first and decides to catch him while remaining unnoticed. This is when unfortunate accidents occur! There have been cases when the bears sneaked quietly so close to hunters that they realized what was happening only when they felt the bear's heavy paws upon them. First, the bear tries to disarm a human by hitting away everything that one has in his hands, and then, if successful, he finishes him off in his own way! If one sees the bear first, he can easily come up close to him, because the bear is not cautious, is afraid of nothing, and does not look back. Even if a stick cracks under the feet of the hunter, no problem, because the bear will not pay attention to this; however, as soon as he catches a human smell in the air, or he sees yousneaking towards him ( and therefore not afraid of him ) he will most likely run away. If the bear sees that you are afraid of him, because you moved backward or to the side, he will undoubtedly decide that "anything is possible, therefore, let us see who will take whom" as promyshlenniks would say, For such an occasion, in our Transbaikalia, there is a rule: once you see a bear and know that the bear sees you, never show him that you are afraid. It is always better to move a little towards him, or just stay where you are, but never run back. An unexpected noise or sound frightens the bear so much that it causes diarrhea with blood in it, and the animal dies soon after. Witnesses tell many stories like this, and have confirmed them with facts.

Plain folks also testify that the bear is afraid of the human stare. I asked many people who came in the forest, not for hunting, who had no firearms. They met bears, but hid themselves behind thick tree trunks looking intensely into the bear's eyes, and so remained unharmed. As a last resort, everyone has heard of many unfortunates who saved their lives by playing possum, or as locals would say prikhilyatsya. The bears only covered them with moss and branches, and then left. Such an unfortunate barely got out from his superficial grave before happily coming back home to his home with his wife and kids, praising God and swearing never to go again to the remote thickets of the taiga!

If the bear is full, he is always afraid of humans, and does not seek a chance to meet them. The proof of this is the fact that a bear is always afraid of a human smell carried towards him on the wind, although the human still remains invisible; if this happens when the bear is on his way, he will always change his direction, trying to avoid the meeting. It is a true proverb that says "courage takes cities..." and it is particularly true when hunting bears. If one is not afraid, and relies on his composure and his gun, then it is not difficult to kill a bear. However, if you are not sure, it is better not to bother the bear! Reply

[brotherbear]

Siberians say that the bear is khlipok ( weak ) on his rump. Indeed, if the bear will hit a stick or something else with his rump, he will scream out in a scary voice. An angry bear's scream sounds coarse, loud and hollow; when he is in a quiet mood, his voice sounds like a howl. Cubs growl and purr, but when unhappy they squeal loudly. Also, an angry bear is pants and sobs, but when he is afraid and wants to frighten someone, he snorts ( fychkaet ). Generally, a bear's voice is heard often during the mating period, especially when two males are fighting. If the roar of fighting bears is heard from afar, a timid person will shiver, and some will tremble with their hairs standing up. Indeed, the roaring of the bear is horrible, especially at night and especially in the mountains, where its echo repeats and sends these frightening wild sounds along the valleys and mountains, cliffs, rocks, mountain ridges and forests of Dauria. First, it is thunder loud, and then it becomes weaker, ending with a gradually dying, barely-heard sound. A wounded bear roars even more terribly. This is why promyshlenniks say "once the black plague roars, even the earth is rising!" ... Reply

[brotherbear]

The intelligence of the bear is well known. He easily and skillfully climbs trees, mainly trees with smooth trunks; he is afraid of trees with branches, and climbs them reluctantly, probably because branches and sticks often deceive him by breaking under his enormous weight. Once I saw a cub descending from a tree head-down. I do not know whether this happens with adult bears. Some promyshlenniks are convinced that even an adult bear sometimes descends the tree with his head down, but only if the tree has many branches. If the trunk is smooth, he descends by backing down.
The bear swims very well; even biggest rivers do not make an obstacle for him, because he easily swims across them. In the summer, the bear likes to take a bath and spends a lot of time lying in the water. The bear can swim in many positions, even vertically.

It is interesting that, despite his seemingly clumsiness and size, the bear likes to have fun, doing things like rolling big rocks from high mountains and cliffs. He rolls them from high-altitude steep slopes and it is enjoyable to see him watching the rocks rolling down and bouncing, hitting other rocks, which also start rolling, further and further. Possibly he just wants to push one rock, but, further below, many rocks are falling. Such an innocent business! One must see this undetected by the bear in order to appreciate it properly. Another game of the bear begins when he finds a tree broken by the wind, with the remaining part of the trunk split high above the ground into several long pieces, especially a tree hit by lightening. This is a valuable find for a bear, and especially for a female with cubs. The bear stands upright, grabs on a piece with his front paws, and bends it almost to the ground. Then suddenly he lets it free. The resilient piece quickly returns to its original vertical position and hits the rest of them, producing a loud rattling noise. Perhaps exactly this sound is a treat for the bear's music-appreciating ear. As soon as one becomes familiar with the forest and the area, in the evening or in the morning he will see or hear such bear entertainments. Reply

[brotherbear]

During the day, bears most often hide themselves in forest thickets, near springs and mountain creeks, avoiding direct sunlight and horseflies. At night, bears walk everywhere, and are not afraid to go into big forest roads and in wide valleys. If horseflies bother him very much, he will roar, hold his head with his front paws, and roll on the grass like a hedgehog. He likes to catch chipmunks for fun rather than for food, because a chipmunk is so small and quick; also, he will catch young hazel hens, capercaillies, etc., for a snack. What is a small hazel hen or a young capercaille then a huge appetite of the bear? If he can eat a small cow at one course, then a hazel hen is not even enough for a bite. ( A bear can eat not more than 30 kg - 66 pounds - of meat at a time, Vladimir Beregovoy ). Sometimes bears open pit traps set for roe deer, and removes whatever has been trapped. It is a problem for a trapper if a bear learns to visit his pit traps. The bear will eat not only all of the catch, but also will destroy the pit and scare off all other the animals around with his frequent visits. This is one reason why the bear is often called "inspector" in conversations, or as promyshlenniks say, levisor. However, the bear is shrewd, and he will not go to check the pits when he might meet their owner, who would kill him. The latter often happens. He goes to check the traps late at night, late in the evening, or in the early morning. Reply

[brotherbear]

Where there is a nest of a bear with cubs one will never find tracks of other mammals, such as roe deer, Siberian elk, hare, and other animals. This serves as one sign when you are searching for a bear's apartment! Besides, in the wintertime, when it is very cold, water vapor coming out of the bear's den and condensing on nearby bushes is a sure sign that the bear is in the den.
The bear likes Manchurian pine nuts very much, eats them in huge quantities, and becomes very fat. A bear in the nut garden is fun to watch! See how the bear picks pine cones, standing on his hind legs and gathering them in I pile, or holding them between his paws and his chest. Then, he carries the cones onto a clear place, and rolls them between his paws or on the ground or on a rock so the nuts come out and become a tasty treat. He also eats salty plants and especially mineral water, and laps it in large quantities like a dog.

Prior to his time of denning, in late fall, the bear does not eat anything, except bear root and some grass ( I could not find its name ), which cleans his intestines so they become as clean as though they were washed, and then he dens up. This is a strange thing, and I want to attract the attention of gentlemen hunters and naturalists to it. The bear lies in the den with so-called vtulok. This is nothing but a cylindrical lump the size of a fist located in the bear's rectum, near its outer part. Whenever a bear is killed in Transbaikalia, it always has this vtulok. It is never found in shatuns, bears that do not den in wintertime for a variety of reasons. This vtulok is very tough and it is hard to smash with an ax butt or a rock; I do not know about its composition and what its function or meaning is for the bear. Siberians say that it locks the heat inside the bear for the entire winter. This is a peculiar explanation! I think that maybe it is formed of some intestinal junk as a result of the bear's stopping feeding; or maybe it is the remaining waste, which, after diarrhea during hibernation, heat, and the absence of formation of excrement inside the den, turned into such a condition? I am sorry that I did not investigate these vtulok well. They look like they are formed out of chewed coniferous tree leaves, or bark. Maybe the bear eats these materials instinctively for a certain naturally designed end? These vtuloks are sometimes found in uvals ( sunny grassy mountain slopes ) where bears live. One who does not know about them may take them for something else, but never as a thing formed inside the bear's stomach!! There have been examples where, in some bears killed in dens, two vtuloks were found, situated one after another near the rectum. Local hunters have a funny explanation. They say that the bear prepares two vtuloks just in case one of them would shoot out if the bear were frightened. Then the other one would still remain, and he could lie down again in another den to finish his hibernation. They also say that without the vtulok bear will not overwinter but will freeze to death. It would be interesting to find out if such vtuloks occur in bears killed in climates warmer than in Transbaikalia? Reply

[brotherbear]

There are years when the berries and nuts crop is very poor or totally absent. This is when the so-called shatun bears appear. These are bears which could not become fat during the summer, who wander in winter and rarely survive until spring. Usually they are killed by hunters or they die of starvation. Such shatuns are very dangerous, because they attack everything that might become food, including humans, and they are very bold. Sometimes, hunger forces them to go where people live, and they are killed. Besides, some bears that are driven out of their dens do not return, and become shatuns. If promyshlenniks do not kill these bears, wolves will. Wolf packs easily kill such bears, especially when the winter is harsh and the snow covers the entire taiga; then the exhausted bears cannot attack or even defend themselves. Promyshlenniks tell stories about such mad bears coming to the huts of squirrel hunters, herdsmen, and the yurts of nomadic native people. Even a bonfire at night does not stop such a wanderer in the cold season. They say that the bear coming to the camp frightens people, but is afraid to make a direct attack. First, he runs to a river, lake or swamp and enters the water, and then he runs to the bonfire and extinguishes it by shaking his wet hair! This gives the people enough time to run away, leaving everything to the bear, or to prepare to defend themselves and kill it. I believe this, because I saw myself how bold and aggressive they can be. There are so many anecdotes and tall tales told about bears that it becomes hard to believe even a true story. Nevertheless, I should repeat that the audacity of shatuns is remarkable. Reply

[brotherbear]

I will end it here, although the book contains much more...
Promyshlennik is a Russian name for a Siberian hunter and adventurer who hunts for profit rather than "sport", rather like an American mountain man or "sourdough". Instead of gold, Promyshlenniks looked for the valuable furs of sable, marten, and other animals. Some hoped to make quick money; for many it simply became a way of life ( Vladimir Beregovoy ). Remember that this book was first published in 1865 and has remained continuously in print to this very day.

I feel that I must add that the tiger ( babr ) is hardly mentioned throughout this book. Reply

[brotherbear]

http://www.redorbit.com/education/reference_library/animal_kingdom/mammalia/1112523651/ussuri-brown-bear-ursus-arctos-lasiotus/  

The Ussuri brown bear, sometimes called the black grizzly, can be found in many regions including the Korean Peninsula, Kunashiri Islands, northeastern China, Sakhalin, and the Shantar Islands, among other places. It is a subspecies of the brown bear. The Usurri brown bear is thought to be an ancestor of the North American brown bear, and may have traveled to its current locations from Alaska 13,000 years ago.

This bear has many similarities to the Kamchatka brown bear, but its differences include a slightly darker color, a longer skull, cheekbones that are not as separated, and a lower forehead. The skulls of adult males can reach a width of 9.2 inches and a length of up to 15.2 inches. The Ussuri brown bear can differ in size depending on its location; bears in the southern regions of Injeba’k Mountain can weigh up to five hundred and fifty-one pounds, while the bears found north of the mountain can weigh up to 1,322 pounds.

The status of the Ussuri brown bear in most of its regions is endangered, except in Russia where the bear is occasionally hunted. In Heilongjiang, there are around 500-1,500 bears, and even with its status as a vulnerable species, is still hunted for its valuable body parts. In Hokkaido, there are five different subpopulations of these bears. The small population in western Ishikari, numbering around 152 bears at most, has been listed as endangered in Japan’s Red Data Book. The population of up to 135 bears in the Teshio-Mashike Mountains has also been listed as endangered. The numbers of Ussuri bears in these regions are so small because of human forestry practices, excessive harvesting, and the construction of roads. In Korea, there are only a few of the Ussuri brown bear left in existence. This has led them to become a national monument. There are two main populations of this bear in North Korea; the JaGang province and HamKyo’ng Mountains. In South Korea, the Ussuri brown bear is extinct, mainly because of poaching. The Ainu people, natives to areas of Japan and Russia, actually worshipped this bear and would perform rituals that included ingesting the bear’s meat and blood.

The Ussuri brown bears in Sikhote Alin are known to live in burrows that have been dug into hillsides. They have also been known, although rarely, to dig ground burrows or live in rock outcroppings. This bear has rare encounters with other bears in the area, as it prefers to live at higher elevations. On the Island of Sakhalin, bears will feed on a various number of things. In middle Sakhalin, they will feed on the previous year’s supply of ants, flotsam (or wreckage), and bilberry, and before hibernation will eat mainly rhizomes and tubers from tall grasses. On the southern areas of the island, Ussuri bears will feed on flotsam, maple twigs, and insects. The summer diet will consist of chokeberries and currents. The Ussuri brown bears in Hokkaido will eat many things including fish, small mammals, birds, and even ants.

The Ussuri brown bear is known to have interactions with Siberian tigers, as they are sometimes hunted by them. It is thought that the tigers have little impact of the bears because they also exist in small numbers. Typically, attacks from tigers will occur while the bears are hibernating. They are attacked more than small bears because of their tendency to live in more open spaces, and because they cannot climb trees. Tigers are able to kill the bears by latching onto the back, one paw holding onto the chin and the other latching onto the throat. The killing blow is dealt when the tiger bites into the bear’s spinal column. Tigers will eat mainly fatty parts of the bears’ body, including the legs, groin, and back. These attacks typically occur when the tiger’s main prey of hoofed animals have a low population count.

Reports of Ussuri brown bears hunting Siberian tigers have been reported. These incidents occur because of disputes over prey or territory. Some bears will change their course if they smell a tiger has passed, while others will follow the tiger’s trail and even sleep in its den. It has even been reported that some Ussuri bears have followed tigers in order to eat the leftovers from its kills. Scientists have dubbed these bears “satellite bears” because of this frequent behavior.

The Ussuri brown bear has attacked humans before, and the attacks are well documented. In the Sankebetsu brown bear incident, occurring in Sankei in the Sankebetsu district in December of 1915, seven people were killed. The eight hundred and thirty-seven pound bear attacked twice, killing the second set of victims during the prefuneral vigil being held for the first victims. This incident is thought to be the cause of the bear’s man eating image. During the first fifty-seven years of the 20th century, the Ussuri bear injured three hundred people, and one hundred and forty-one were killed.


Read more at http://www.redorbit.com/education/refere...p5LWwUL.99 Reply

[brotherbear]

An interesting find: http://shaggygod.proboards.com/board/63/...ture-links 
 
Rough translation from Russian to English:


Irkuyem or unusual bear

Before us three essays on unusual bears. However, some of these bears is called a purely arbitrary.

From the book by Oleg Kuvaeva "It's a great bear":

"... In 1898, first became aware of the world's largest predator - a huge brown bear ..." - wrote to the Belgian zoologist Bernad Eyvelmans.

On the terrifying monster also talked shepherds deaf Chaun valley in Chukotka. Farley Mouet, Canadian writer, in his book "People of deer-edge brought stories you hear from the people of Alaska, about the terrible growth of the brown beast twice polar bear.

I came to believe that if organized an expedition to Chukotka, it may be fortunate enough to sort out all this hell with the bears excessive quantities, which they say is in the Chukotka region, then on the Kamchatka Peninsula, the Alaska ...

With that I came in "Around the World." The starting point of searching, we have chosen El'gygytgyn lake, some three kilometers from Chaun Bay. ... But the days passed, weeks - bears on the lake El'gygytgyn was not, although in the past it has been a favorite place for their camping grounds. And only at the end of summer, bad weather Chukchi geologists who have returned from the upper Anyuya, reported seeing one of the ridges wandering huge bear very light, almost white color.

Polar bear wander hundreds of miles from the coast of the Arctic Ocean could not ... I did not say that this could be the one I am looking for - a terrible, lonely, perishing of hunger, because all life has gone in the summer here. I decided myself to go on these trails.

But then the storm is firmly established and ever ... First, I selected to search for, appeared extremely unfortunate. "

Such is a brief summary of the first and second books essay "The Very Big Bear" (Around the World. 1968. № 1-2).

Notebook third

Gone is the incredible depth of the fish El'gygytgyn, the winter winds began many months of the match in the mountain valleys and on the gravelly plains around the lake began to whistle drifting snow. It was probably about such places Tyutchev wrote: "... And drives exuberant whirlwind, knowing no rest, dust the snow along the coast of troubled ...

But, beginning with "troubled banks", the history of searches summer of 1967 does not end there. Even before the expedition, I asked some people who could shed light on the problem of interest to me. 
 
Home waiting for me three letters. Canada has responded Farley Mouet. From the old Cossack village on the River Anadyr Markovo sent a letter to the huntsman, hunter with a thirty-year experience and safecracker Viktor Gunchenko. Dr. Bernard Eyvelmans in Paris, too, received my letter and kindly sent a lengthy reply.



It is time to survey the accumulated information at the desk when emotional factors like the campfire from the polar birch trees or knocking stones in quiet mountain valleys are absent. Common human prejudice says that emotions interfere with objective analysis. The pyramid was built something like this reasoning.



A. The foundation of all history were the rumors, rare news and evidence of the existence of bears disproportionately large quantities in the North-East Asia and adjacent areas of North America.



On these rumors and news can be a known propensity to give up skepticism, if not for the existence of a giant Kodiak bear, and usually bear weighs about 300 kg, large - 500 huge, like a grizzly - to 700, but the bear, delivered in Berlin Zoo from Kodiak Island, weighed 1200 kilograms.



And no less important fact is the complete agreement of legends about the big bear among the two groups, separated by a wide strait: the Eskimos of Alaska and the mainland at the Shepherds of Chukotka.



The primary hypothesis, which I believe still on Wrangel Island, where my own eyes have seen a polar bear enormous dimensions, was the fact that the Bears just might be an underlying abnormally large size. There is no reason to talk about the existence of a special kind of giant these animals.



Due to the decrease in the total number of bears under the laws of statistics should decrease the number of large individuals. And I became interested in what also bears, "biwa" in the olden days, for example, in Eastern Siberia. Here is what informs the diligent researcher, a hunter and a writer, a mining engineer Aleksandr Cherkasov, who lived in the Trans-Baikal in the middle of the XIX century:



"... It should be noted that in Siberia bears reach the terrible magnitude. I have seen on one of the stations of the Krasnoyarsk province skin has just killed a bear in length from nose to tail with a little over 20 quarters, skin is in 18 or 19 quarters in the Trans-Baikal region are not uncommon ... "Given that the Russian quarter is 17 centimeters, the initial hypothesis received solid reinforcement.

But Viktor Gunchenko told me: "I live in a Markov 1932. Personally, he killed 16 bears, among them the larger 250-350 kg were not. I know the local hunter-safecracker, dobyvshih to 40 bears.



One of them, Mirnovsky, who died in 1965, said that the huge bear he is not producing, but shot in 1962, an old male weighing about 500 kilograms. For many years I worked as a designated recipient of furs, and through my hands passed a lot of skins. I think that within the Anadyr area (located south of the lake area El'gygytgyn. - OK) bears huge, not to extract ... "


Of course, the evidence VA Gunchenko applies only to the Anadyr region, namely, it was a center of Cossack colonization of Chukotka since the middle of XVII century. Nevertheless, the hypothesis of local over-age bears get a solid crack to the hunters have their own channels of information, and in the case of extraction of an unusually large bear Gunchenko, living without a break in the Chukotka region, would know about it. 
 
B. Hence, we can talk rather than on the Asian bears, and about some other exotic (and perhaps relic?) Living in the desert places and meet so rarely that the hunters before them, have not got. By the way, the shepherds talked not just about great, and "special", "horrible" bear. "Special" can be attributed to an unusual appearance - such as color, - "terrible" can be explained by the size and aggressiveness.



The largest bear known to science is a grizzly. Could some small number of grizzly bears get into or occasionally exposed to Chukotka? Staunch supporter of this hypothesis appears in a letter Farley Mouet.



"It seems to me - he writes - that your giant bear may be a relative of the North American grizzly bear, which, as you know, the biggest in the world ... because they live far from the Bering Strait, it is possible that in the past they might have migrated to Siberia.



Traces of 'them are immense, and even on the trail you can see that this beast twice larger than usual. Reports of meetings with giant bears in the Chukotka region, I think quite likely. It is possible that we are talking about the bears, who drifted on ice floes across the Bering Strait and crossed it on foot in a particularly harsh winter. I say this because the Alaskan grizzly bears - the great nomad ... "

It is difficult to judge whether the land a grizzly drift on the ice. But cross the frozen 70-mile strait to him, probably not very difficult. Then it is understandable surprise people who met "mysterious bears - grizzly look is unusual for shepherds of Chukotka. That explains why it occurs so rarely.



This newcomer is fast disappearing, because biological reproduction, even in conditions suitable for life requires a certain (and quite under the laws of biology), the number of individuals of both sexes. But the same argument casts doubt on the hypothesis of an attractive conservation in the wilds of the mountain valleys bear relic of former times.



(Incidentally, in his letter to Farley Mouet with his writers could not resist the emotional debate and a guess: "... In Torngatskih mountains on the peninsula Labrador Inuit talk about another type of bear, with very long wolfish teeth. Still no white man is not such a bear seen, and perhaps this is a myth.



However, descriptions of the Eskimos are very similar to the reconstruction of the Cave Bear, which is believed to have disappeared thousands of years ago. All this may serve as a faint hope that a small number of cave bears still exists today. And if so, then I looked to them precisely in the mountainous regions of Verkhoyansk, Kolyma and Anadyr ... ")



Whatever it was, there are stories about the bear that capture the imagination of shepherds in Chukotka and Eskimos in Alaska. The bear - live animal, he avoids it with noisy meetings expeditions, be it geology, topography, ethnographers, especially because all these people are just guests in polar and mountain tundra.



And if one agrees that such a bear there, then we must either accept the hypothesis accidentally wandered into Asia grizzly, or assume that there is a rare and small species of giant bears, bear-like Kodiak. This question is even more complicated, that the very classification and description of the arctic brown bears still in general are imperfect.


Several letters pages of Dr. Bernard Eyvelmansa and were devoted to this, apparently, to their situation. 
 
"At the present time - writes Bernard Eyvelmans - most scientists come to consensus about what needs to be reduced to a single species of brown bears and gray giant bears, or grizzly, Eurasia and North America, which would be subdivided, therefore, on numerous subspecies.



... The most sensible and most correct would be considered as brown bears, giants, an extreme form of variation of a grizzly ... "




Source: Warsaw (thank you for the follow up, nice find). Reply