LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Bears: Winter
built 258 days ago
Bears are powerfull built creatures with small eyes and ears, large claws and a slow, ambling gait that can quickly shift to surprising bursts of speed. Bears can if necessary ... up to 50 km/h fast run. Usually they climb well (in particular the Malasyan) and can swim also excellently. Some kinds hold a winter peace during the cold months.
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Bears have long fascinated humans. Ancient cave art and more recent paintings and sculpture illustrate the fear as well as admiration with which people regard the awesome power and acute intelligence of bears. In fairy tales, bears are the symbolic image of brave deeds. In folk literature, the bear’s habit of disappearing in winter months and emerging in spring evokes a theme of spiritual renewal, the replenishment of food, and the return of prosperity.
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Many bears of northern regions are assumed to hibernate in the winter. While many bear species do go into a physiological state called hibernation or winter sleep, it is not true hibernation. In true hibernators, body temperatures drop to near ambient and heart rate slows drastically, but the animals periodically rouse themselves to urinate or defecate and to eat from stored food. The body temperature of bears, on the other hand, drops only a few degrees from normal and heart rate slows only slightly. They normally do not wake during this "hibernation", and therefore do not eat, drink, urinate or defecate the entire period. Higher body heat and being easily roused may be adaptations, because females give birth to their cubs during this winter sleep.
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Little food is available after bears emerge from their dens in spring. They lose weight during this period until later in the summer when blackberries, pokeberries and blueberries ripen. During autumn, bears feed heavily on fat-rich acorns and hickory nuts and commonly gain 100 pounds or more during this short time. This extra fat readies them for the rigors of winter denning. Consequently, acorn and other nut crops are vital for bears.
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Grizzlies hibernate in much of the same way as other bears. During the summer and fall, they stock up body fat for the long winter sleep. They usually dig their dens in the fall. They are not "totally" asleep during the winter. If it is a nice, warm day, they will come to the ground in search of food.
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When black bears den, their heart and respiration rates decrease markedly. But unlike the "true hibernators," body temperature does not decrease drastically. This enables bears to rouse quickly from their winter sleep and occasionally make short ventures from dens on warm winter days.
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