LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Brown Bear: Brown Bears
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Brown bear moms (called sows) perform an amazing feat while sleeping through the winter: they give birth! Breeding season occurs May to July, but implantation of the eggs is delayed for up to five months, and cubs are not born until January or February, during the coldest part of the winter. There are usually two cubs in a litter, and they are born almost hairless, toothless, and with their eyes sealed shut. They find their mother's nipples by heading for the warmth. Although the sow will sleep through the winter, the cubs spend their time nursing, wrestling, and keeping warm in her fur. The cubs' eyes open when they are six weeks old, and by the time spring comes around they have grown teeth and thick fur and are able to follow the sow outside the den.
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Brown bears usually dominate other bear species in areas where they coexist. Due to their smaller size, American black bears are at a competitive disadvantage over brown bears in open, non-forested areas. Although displacement of black bears by brown bears has been documented, actual interspecific killing of black bears by brown bears has only occasionally been reported. The diurnal black bear's habit of living in heavily forested areas as opposed to the largely nocturnal brown bear's preference for open spaces usually ensures that the two species avoid confrontations in areas where they are sympatric.[13] There has been a recent increase in interactions between brown bears and polar bears, theorized to be caused by global warming. Brown bears have been seen moving increasingly northward into territories formerly claimed by polar bears. Brown bears tend to dominate polar bears in disputes over carcasses[14] and dead polar bear cubs have been found in brown bear dens.[15] Giant Panda cubs have ... been reportedly eaten by brown bears.[2]
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Kodiak Bear is the largest of all the brown bears of the Alaskan coast and islands, which weight up to 680 kilogram. Also called Big Brown (because of the size) these giants fatten on everything from mountain blueberies to washed-up whale carcasses, but their particular prey is the big Pacific salmon that come up the coastal rivers each summer to spawn. Seeing a Kodiak bear rearing its monstrous bulk in the air to spot a likely fishing hole, one finds it hard to realize that it was born blind and helpless, an infant the size of a rat and weighing less than a pound
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Brown bears are true omnivores and will eat anything nutritious that they find. Most of their diet consists of plant matter, but they will certainly eat meat if they can find it. Bears will dig for roots, tubers, and insects, scavenge for carrion, and even occasionally hunt prey such as rodents, young deer, and elk. However, the food that first comes to mind when one thinks of bears is salmon. The bears in Alaska and Russia will flock to the rivers used by salmon swimming upstream to spawn every summer. Brown bears live solitary lives once they leave their family, but the yearly salmon run brings many bears together. A social structure determines which bears get the best fishing spots.
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Brown bears, along with polar bears, are the largest of the bear species. Brown bears range in weight from 95 to 780 kg (209 to 1716 lb), and adult males generally weigh more than adult females. Kodiak bears, which often feed on salmon, weigh more than 440 kg (970 lb); many males weigh more than 700 kg (1540 lb). Grizzly bears, with a diet of berries, vegetation, and small mammals, are smaller than Kodiak bears. Depending on habitat, the average weight of grizzlies varies from 150 to 360 kg (330 to 794 lb) in Alaska and British Columbia, 95 to 139 kg (209 to 306 lb) in the Yukon Territory, and 102 to 324 kg (224 to 714 lb) in Yellowstone National Park.
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ADF&G biologists are using GPS technology and aerial radio-tracking (VHF) to document brown bear locations on the Kenai Peninsula. Several bears have been handled in the Kachemak Bay Watershed. Through 1998, only females had been collared. In 1999, a newly developed collar was tested to follow males from spring until midsummer. The GPS collars are recovered and replaced each spring and/or fall so that the GPS data can be downloaded and analyzed. Various physiological measurements are ... taken, including weight, body composition (protein:fat), and age.
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