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.
BEARS of the last frontier... My college years provided an opportunity to aid a research team led by grizzly bear and wolf biologist Peter Clarkson for six months in the Canadian Arctic to study the needs of barren ground grizzly bears. Helping to tranquilize bears from a helicopter in the open tundra of the Northwest Territories gave me an incredible respect for bears and their ability to thrive in a myriad of different habitats. The species was the same as the one I had become familiar with, but in no way did these arctic bears have anything in common with their Spanish cousins. In this harsh landscape, they had to rely upon their intelligence, memory, and ingenuity when it came to finding sufficient food - mostly in the form of roots, berries, and the occasional caribou carcass. It was a tough life sustained by tough animals.
BEARS of the last frontier... The Deosai Plateau, one of the highest plateaus in the world, nestled among giant Himalayan peaks, harbors one of the world's least known bear populations. Like their relatives in Spain and the Canadian Arctic, these bears are well adapted to their local environment: in this case, an incredibly hostile treeless plain at 14,000 feet where a diet of sedges and whistling marmots makes life possible. My time here ( northern Pakistan ) opened my eyes to the passion people from different walks of life have for bears.
BEARS of the last frontier... Many people are surprised to hear that a significant part of a bear's diet is made up of vegetation, including grasses, sedges, berries, and roots. Large molars enable them to grind cellulose effectively. But no matter how preoccupied with grazing, bears in this environment ( Alaskan Peninsula ) are ever watchful for other bears - as targets for mating, competitors to confront, or individuals to avoid.
BEARs of the last frontier... I thought courtship was complicated for people, but not any more. I've watched the brown bears play the game for over a month now and I'm beginning to think we have it easy. ...The big fellow had an air of supreme confidence about him, and he immediately pulled out some of his best moves to impress his competitors, starting with a bear's typical cowboy swagger; Elvis eat your heart out: The hip gyrations on this guy caught everyone's attention, including another large male that was already copulating with a female. His female glanced towards the handsome newcomer, and paid for it with a jealous bite on the ear from her frustrated male. She let out a growl of pain and sure enough, Elvis clocked the commotion and came shuffling over as fast as his swagger would allow. There's only one thing that makes a male bear more attractive than the hip swagger and that's when he urinates all over his feet to spread his scent as widely as possible with each stride. Yes, this guy really knew what he was doing. Walking his scent all over the meadow certainly got some attention and put the other males on notice. Females took note left, right, and center. Only one thing stood between him and his chosen female: the male that had already claimed her.
BEARS of the last frontier... Suddenly, the action turned from slow motion to quick draw: in an explosion of power and testosterone the clash of the titans thundered before us. One of the males swung such a forceful left hook that all four paws left the ground for a second. Definitely no small feat for a thousand-pound lover. Teeth, claws, saliva, muscle, and flying fur - it was like a small bomb went off in the middle of the wilderness. The female frantically circled the battling males just three feet away like a tiny referee, scoring the fight, psyched at the idea of leaving with the winner. Wads of fur flew, backlit by the evening sun, and then, just ten seconds after the first punch was landed, it was over. It was as much as either of them could take. The behemoths seperated, exhausted and breathing heavily, standing on all fours just ten feet apart, heads held low. Slowly, the new comer turned to walk away without pausing for a moment to look over his shoulder. He was the new champ. In the bear world, only the winner has the confidence to do this; it is a key piece of body language. The famale fell in behind him and left the scene with her new male.
BEARS of the last frontier... The bears here are certainly a hardy breed, but even they have to avoid the harshness of winter by denning for as long as seven months of the year. Despite the fact that Denali has a reasonable supply of meat in the form of caribou, moose, and sheep. Bears here still depend most heavily on vegetation. Around 80 or even 90 percent of their diet comes from plants, among them crowberry, blueberry, hedysarum roots, grasses, fireweed shoots, horsetail, sedge, and soapberry, an important diet item that bears can consume at the rate of 200,000 per day.
BEARS of the last frontier... Spring sees a change in diet for the bears that have learned to kill moose and caribou calves or scavenge on the remains of those that didn't make it through the trauma of birth. Pat Owen, one of the Denali park biologists, told me that she has also seen grizzly bears halfheartedly pursuing adult moose and caribou, but usually the chase didn't last long once the bears came to their senses. Wolves of course also prey upon these ungulate species, leaving valuable carcasses behind for opportunistic bears, wolverines, foxes, and ravens.
BEARS of the last frontier... Thankfully for the grizzly bear, the arctic ground squirrel also successfully made it across the land bridge to the new world and continues to thrive in Denali. These insignificant-looking little creatures play an important role in the ecosystem. Preyed upon by everything from snowy owls and gyrfalcons to red foxes, wolves, and grizzly bears, they have every right to be a little nervous. Weighing in at a mere one and a half pounds, the ground squirrel lives on the edge. It's probably a good thing they sleep for eight months of the year as they really have to have their wits about them for the other four.
BEARS of the last frontier... Climate change in particular does not bode well for the polar bear - or any animal adapted to the cold. They spend most of their lives on the ice - a concept so incredibly alien to us that it is hard to imagine an animal being so completely comfortable on a frozen sea amid the harshest conditions on earth. They hunt, sleep, mate, and wander thousands of miles in this habitat, thriving in a world that was new to them until very recently in the evolution timeline.
BEARS of the last frontier... I've watched polar bears climbing icebergs, dancing between ice floes, swimming frigid seas, and sprawling out casually during mind-numbingly cold arctic storms. They always look at home in the cold. One one occasion I watched a young male dive repeatedly into the slushy ocean from an icy platform. Time after time he would belly flop right into the sea, often jumping onto a slab of ice, a little like a giant kitten pouncing onto a toy. Seconds later he would haul himself out, dripping gallons of water from his fur, only to repeat the same flop a second or two later. I swear he had a smile on his face the whole time. It seems very apt that polar bears are categorized as pagophilic, or "ice-loving." It is certainly the impression I got from the young male bear that day.
BEARS of the last frontier... "Love at first sight" were the words I entered in my journal after seeing the western Brooks Range for the very first time in the spring, and they stir the same emotions now as they did then. -Its reputation for wildlife is also impressive as it is home to perhaps the highest concentration of grizzly bears in the Alaskan Arctic, which along with wolves and wolverines benefit from the estimated 125 million pounds of caribou meat that traverses this area. -They are an ancient species completely at home on this northern landscape. The earliest fossil records were found in the Yukon Territory and date back 1.5 million years. They have shared this landscape with woolly mammoths, steppe bison, camels, and giant beavers measuring eight feet long and weighing two hundred pounds. Moose, musk ox, and grizzly bears survived alongside the caribou and, to this day, also call this place home. The caribou have become an essential component of the ecosystems here, aerating soils, providing nutrients in the form of thousands of tons of droppings, and even contributing insulation lining materials for the nests of lemmings and birds.
BEARS of the last frontier... My sense of respect for bears soars here ( Brooks Range ). If I didn't know that this place could be at times packed with meat, I'd be seriously looking at it from a bear's perspective and saying, "No way, I'm off to the coast." After waking from a long winter sleep, of fasting, the bears are ravenous but have to be content with flowers, roots, sedges, and ground squirrels until the caribou flow across the land like life-giving blood during the calving season. Then, the feast begins.
BEARS of the last frontier... A polar bear's sense of smell is unparalleled. It has to be. In order to survive, a polar bear must find and kill seals by stalking them across the ice, waiting for them to emerge from a breathing hole or pouncing through an ice-enclosed nursery den. These bears can smell a seal from miles away, practically "seeing" their environment with their noses.
BEARS of the last frontier... The connection between polar bears and their icy habitat is so strong that if ice conditions decline, so does the health of the bears. Bears need ice because their prey need ice. Their almost exclusive dependence on seals means that conditions have to be just right for hunting. For example, bears need more than 50 percent ice cover to hunt and travel efficiently. Research has shown that a reduction in ice cover leads to thinner bears, fewer young, and lower survival rates. Climate change means that the spring thaw comes earlier and the fall freeze-up later, giving the bears less time to hunt.
BEARS of the last frontier... I feel very fortunate to have watched many polar bears over the years, and one thing that stands out and surprises a lot of people is how individual their personalities are. Bears are incredibly intelligent animals with huge variation in character - just like people. We can tend to forget this personal side of bears as we talk "populations" in distant places, but those populations are made up of individuals, each living their lives with a range of habits and traits, some learned, some passed down from generations before.
Survival Skills of Bears
