Tag Archives: Kodiak Bear

In Conclusion

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When I reach the end of a manuscript, I dread writing the conclusion because a conclusion requires a great deal of thought and effort. Just as we were nearly done polishing my non-fiction book, Kodiak Island Wildlife, the editor said he believed the book needed a conclusion, and I groaned, but I also agreed with him.

I don’t know how long I stared at a blank computer screen, but I could think of nothing to write. How do you sum up a book about wildlife? Then, as I stood on our boat one morning, watching giant fin whales with our guests, the conclusion for my book popped into my mind, fully formed. When I read it to my husband, tears came to my eyes, and I knew I had done my best work. My editor agreed, and he said it was the perfect ending. The following is the conclusion for my recently released book, Kodiak Island Wildlife.

Emerald cliffs plunge into the gray ocean, and only a slight breeze stirs the surface of the water. In front of our boat, three huge fin whales feed, frequently surfacing to breathe. Their exhalations sound like cannon shots, and our guests capture every moment with their cameras. A sea otter bobs placidly a short distance from our boat, and a bald eagle circles overhead. I have seen all of this many times, but still, it takes my breath away, and a chuckle escapes my lips. How have I managed to live my life in one of the most beautiful places on the planet? To me, Kodiak is paradise. Sure, the weather here throws frequent tantrums, and mistakes in the hostile wilderness do not go unpunished, but I have found nowhere else I would rather live.

One of my greatest joys is to guide visitors into the Kodiak wilderness. I love the look on a newcomer’s face the first time she sees a Kodiak bear or watches a sea otter eat a crab. I wrote this book to honor the wild animals we’ve watched over the years and to thank the many folks who have visited our lodge. I know they would tell you that Kodiak is a special place. The island is mysterious and magical.

It is a short conclusion, but it sums up how I feel and accurately describes my motivations for writing the book. I am grateful for the many experiences I’ve enjoyed. My life is an adventure filled with wonder in the Kodiak wilderness, and I can’t imagine living anywhere else.

Speaking of wildlife, I hope to return to regular and more frequent posts soon. The past two months have been hectic. I’m writing this while I sit on our boat. We are cruising 100 miles around Kodiak Island from our lodge to the town of Kodiak, where we will have our boat lifted out of the water so that we can clean and paint the bottom. As soon as we return home, we have endless jobs awaiting us before our summer season begins. Meanwhile, I am trying to promote my new book and keep up with my scheduled newsletters and podcasts. I realize I’ve let my blog posts fall through the cracks, and I vow to make my posts more of a priority in the future. Thank you for your patience.

Kodiak Island Wildlife is now Available

Robin Barefield is the author of four Alaska wilderness mystery novels: Big Game, Murder Over Kodiak, The Fisherman’s Daughter, and Karluk Bones. Sign up below to subscribe to her free, monthly newsletter on true crime and mystery in Alaska, and listen to her podcast, Murder and Mystery in the Last Frontier.

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Spring on Kodiak Island

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I love spring. It is my favorite season. As winter loosens its grip and the vegetation begins to grow again, the world seems to return to life. Foxes scream in the middle of the night in search of new mates; does arrive in our yard with their wobbly, newborn fawns; eagles soar in mating spirals and begin remodeling their nests for the arrival of their chicks; and bears leave their dens in search of food after a long winter of fasting.

Spring always brings unexpected joys, and no two springs are alike. This year, we have watched an abundance of herring enter Uyak Bay to spawn. Often when large schools of herring return, we see increased whale, seal, and sea lion activity in the bay, but this year we’ve observed something different and exciting. Bears are feeding on the herring in the tidal flats at the head of Uyak Bay where the herring spawn. While in the summer months, bears typically catch and eat salmon in this same area, they don’t usually congregate to feed on herring. Herring are rich, oily fish loaded with nutritional value, and they provide a great supplement to a bear’s diet.

     Bears’ stomachs contract during hibernation, and when they first leave their dens, their appetites are suppressed, and they eat little, concentrating on emerging plants and their roots.  As spring progresses, bears can be seen feeding in grassy meadows and look much like grazing cattle with their heads bent to the earth.  We don’t usually see bears feeding on fish until summer when they chase and catch salmon, but bears are opportunistic feeders, and since the herring are here now, bears are taking advantage of their abundance.

Herring are smaller than salmon, making them more difficult for a bear to catch. The herring swim into the eelgrass in the tidal areas at the head of Uyak Bay where they lay their eggs. When the tide ebbs, the fish temporarily become stranded in the shallow tidal pools, and bears can chase down and pounce on the fish.

As with salmon fishing, older bears are better than younger bears at landing herring. Fishing is a skill bears learn with much practice over time, so young bears are often clumsy fishermen.  A sub-adult bear might gallop back and forth for thirty minutes without successfully landing a fish, while an older bear walks deliberately through the water and pounces with little effort on a passing herring.  Each bear develops his own, unique fishing technique.   

In the long run, this early appetizer of herring probably will make little difference to the overall health of the bears, but if Kodiak has a poor berry crop and a poor salmon run, this early addition of herring could sustain the bears until the salmon arrive.

Spring is only beginning here on Kodiak Island, and I can’t wait to see what other surprises the season has in store for us.

Robin Barefield is the author of three Alaska wilderness mystery novels, Big Game, Murder Over Kodiak, and The Fisherman’s Daughter. To download a free copy of one of her novels, watch her webinar about how she became an author and why she writes Alaska wilderness mysteries. Also, sign up below to subscribe to her free, monthly newsletter on true murder and mystery in Alaska.

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How Can You Tell if a Kodiak Bear is a Male or a Female?

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Unlike cartoon bears, female Kodiak bears don’t wear hair ribbons on their head, so you must depend on other factors when trying to differentiate a male from a female bear. Last week, when I wrote about how to judge the size of a bear, I covered some of the ways body shape and musculature vary between males and females, but I will cover body shape and other clues in more detail this week.

Does the Bear Have Cubs?

This statement seems so obvious to me that I almost forgot to mention it. I’m sure most of you know male bears do not hang around with cubs. Regardless of what you might have seen in the movies, a Kodiak bear accompanying cubs is always their mother.

Do you see sex organs?

Minus cubs, there are only two sure ways to determine the sex of a Kodiak bear. The first is the presence of either nipples or a penis sheath and testicles. Even if you don’t see her cubs, you might see nipples in the armpit area of a nursing female when she walks. While often not visible, you sometimes see the penis sheath and testicles on a male, especially on a large boar.

Have you seen the bear urinate?

The only other way to be certain of the sex of the bear is to watch it urinate. Females urinate outward and to the rear, while males urinate straight down or forward between the legs. Females also sometimes squat to urinate.

Head and Shoulders:

If you do not see cubs or sex organs, and if the bear is not cooperative enough to urinate in front of you, you will have to depend on other clues to make an educated guess at the sex of the bear. Some of these are the same body shape differences I covered last week when I discussed how to determine the size of a bear.

A female brown bear’s head is narrower than a male’s, and her muzzle tapers, giving her a pointy nose. A female also has narrow shoulders roughly the same size as the head. Male Kodiak bears are more muscular than females. A male has a wide head and a square face. A large male’s forehead muscles bulge, creating a furrow or valley down the center of the forehead, and his massive shoulders are noticeably wider than his head.

Body Shape and Legs:

An adult female brown bear’s legs are shorter and thinner than the legs of an adult male, but unless you are comparing two bears standing side by side, it is not easy to determine the sex of the bear by looking at its legs. Males have robust front legs, and they are heavy through the ankles, ending at their wide feet. A female’s legs taper slightly, giving her the appearance of thinner ankles. Also, because females have shorter legs, their bodies hang lower to the ground.

The body, legs, and mid-section of a male brown bear look heavy and bulky, but since females aren’t exactly dainty in appearance, it is difficult and often misleading to use body shape to determine the sex of a bear. My husband, who had been around Kodiak bears all his life and has been a guide most of his life, says he is still sometimes surprised when he watches a young bear he is certain is a female until the bear urinates, and he realizes it’s a male.

Conclusion:

Unless a bear has cubs, you see her nipples or his genitalia, or you see the bear urinate, it is impossible definitively to differentiate male and female Kodiak bears. A huge bear is probably a boar, but large sows can also look huge, especially after a summer gorging on fish and berries.
The body shape of a bear provides clues to its gender. A heavy, bulky bear with a wide head and shoulders and a furrow down the middle of its forehead, is likely a male. It is more difficult, though, to distinguish sub-adult males from females.

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I hope my posts on bear size and gender answer a few questions about identifying bears in the field. The bottom line is that it’s impossible to pin down the gender of a bear from a distance, but you should be able to tell whether the bear is small or large by looking at the shape of its body.

Next week, I have a treat in store for you. My friend and fellow author, Steve Levi, has agreed to write a guest post about his books and his background. Be sure to stop by next week and meet Steve.

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Robin Barefield is the author of three Alaska wilderness mystery novels, Big Game, Murder Over Kodiak, and The Fisherman’s Daughter. To download a free copy of one of her novels, watch her webinar about how she became an author and why she writes Alaska wilderness mysteries. If you like audiobooks, check out her audiobook version of Murder Over Kodiak. Also, sign up below to subscribe to her free, monthly newsletter on true murder and mystery in Alaska.

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Kodiak Bear Research

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Biologists with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and the Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge are responsible for most of the research on Kodiak bears, and much of this research has concentrated on denning behaviors and home ranges of Kodiak bears, with an emphasis on management applications. Today, the Kodiak Brown Bear Trust funds a portion of bear research. The trust was established in 1981 to compensate for potential impacts on Kodiak bears by the construction and operation of the Terror Lake Hydroelectric Project. The trust funds bear research, management, habitat protection, and educational outreach projects. The Kodiak Brown Bear Trust relies on tax-deductible contributions to carry out its mission. If you would like to support Kodiak bear research and habitat protection, please visit www.kodiakbrownbeartrust.org to learn more about the trust and how you can donate.

In 1896, C.H. Merriam visited Kodiak and confirmed reports that Kodiak bears were the largest bears in the world. He named the species in honor of Russian naturalist Dr. A. Th. Von Middendorff. Merriam divided the North American brown and grizzly bears into eighty-six forms based on slight variations in size, fur color, and skull shape. Scientists now know physical differences in these categories can occur within populations and even within family groups. Today, all North American brown bears, grizzlies, and Eurasian brown bears are grouped into the single species Ursus arctos. Kodiak bears are classified Ursus arctos middendorfi, and all other brown and grizzly bears are listed as Ursus arctos horribilis.

The first scientific studies of Kodiak bears were simple hunting and collecting trips to document their size. In the early 1900’s, research was concerned with determining how many cattle and salmon bears were killing and eating. A study by W.K. Clark in 1955 showed although bears are very effective at catching salmon in a stream, they catch few unspawned salmon, making their impact on the salmon run much less than originally believed. 

As the Kodiak bear became a valued trophy for big game hunters, the focus of the research shifted to learning more about the physiology and behavior patterns of bears. Biologists refined techniques for capturing and marking bears and began to use radio telemetry to track the movements of specific bears. This jump in technology provided biologists with information on home ranges, densities, gender and age ratios, and litter sizes.

Most of the early research on Kodiak bears was conducted on the south end of Kodiak Island, but in 1982, construction began on the Terror Lake Hydroelectric Project on the north end of the island, and funds were made available to study if this project would affect bears in the vicinity of the proposed dam. Biologists were surprised when studies on the bears near Terror Lake showed bears in this area had different denning behaviors and preferences than did bears on the south end of the island, indicating that Kodiak bears have adapted well to the slightly different habitats on opposite ends of the island.

In the 1970’s, a study investigated Kodiak brown bear use of alpine habitat during the summer months and preferred plant foods of bears, while a study published by Victor Barnes in 1990 examined the influence of salmon availability on the movements of brown bears.  A 1994 study by Barnes investigated the impact deer hunters have on Kodiak bears, and a 2006 paper by Barnes discussed his study on the impact of bear viewers and photographers at O’Malley River on Kodiak Island. This study showed that while a regimented bear-viewing program impacted bears less than a non-regimented program, bears were still affected much more by a regimented bear-viewing program than they were when the area was closed to public use. I think the important lesson to learn from this study is that any time you step into the bears’ habitat, you are impacting them to some degree.

Next week, I will tell you about recent research on Kodiak bears. As always, thank you for visiting my blog.

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Robin Barefield is the author of three Alaska wilderness mystery novels, Big Game, Murder Over Kodiak, and The Fisherman’s Daughter. To download a free copy of one of her novels, watch her webinar about how she became an author and why she writes Alaska wilderness mysteries. Also, sign up below to subscribe to her free, monthly newsletter on true murder and mystery in Alaska.

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Humans and Bears on Kodiak Island from the 1960s through the 1980s

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Last week, I wrote about the early relationship between humans and bears on Kodiak Island. Over the next two weeks, I’ll tell you the rest of the story.

Over the 1940s and 50s, the government of Alaska denied ranchers’ requests for stricter predator-control measures against bears, but policies changed in the 1960s when the Alaska Department of Fish and Game worked with ranchers to pursue and kill bears suspected of killing cattle. The Department of Fish and Game went so far as to quietly hire two WWII fighter pilots to shoot bears with a semi-automatic M-1 Garand rifle mounted on a Piper Super Cub aircraft. A group of irate Kodiak hunting guides informed Outdoor Life, and the magazine ran a sensational cover story titled “The Kodiak Bear War.” In 1970, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game decided it was not appropriate for the agency to be involved in a predator-control program on brown bears and it ceased its relationship with the ranchers.

Also in the 1960s, the number of sport-killed bears greatly increased, causing the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and the Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge to enact stricter hunting regulations and seasons, and by the mid-1970s, a well-regulated permit system was in place.

During the 1970s and 1980s, concern and research focused more heavily on Kodiak-brown-bear habitat. The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) was signed into law on December 18, 1971. As a result of ANCSA, local native groups on Kodiak selected as their land much of the coastline of Kodiak, the Karluk River drainage, and several other smaller islands in the archipelago, causing the Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge to lose control of 310,000 acres of prime bear habitat.

In 1979, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission began working on an environmental impact statement for a proposed hydroelectric project and dam at Terror Lake on the north end of Kodiak Island. The public and various agencies were concerned the project would disturb bear denning and feeding areas, and finally, a settlement was reached in 1981, providing funds to support research on project impacts on salmon, mountain goats, and bears. This agreement established The Kodiak Brown Bear Trust, which is still a source of funds for brown bear research and habitat protection. Research indicated the hydroelectric project had few long-term negative impacts on bears, and the project supported highly beneficial research.

On March 24th, 1989, the Exxon Valdez spilled eleven million gallons of crude oil in Prince William Sound. As the oil spread, ocean currents carried it to Kodiak, killing seabirds, eagles, sea otters, harbor seals, and killer whales. Oil washed onto the beaches, causing habitat destruction and resulting in reduced salmon runs in the following years. I have read several articles stating no bears were directly killed by eating oiled birds or animal carcasses, but I believe this statement is inaccurate. I personally saw two dead bears on remote beaches during the summer of 1989, and while necropsies were not performed on the animals, it is unusual to see a dead bear on the beach, and I think it is likely their deaths were directly linked to the contaminated beaches and the oiled bird and animal carcasses that had drifted onto those beaches. Furthermore, if I saw two dead bears, it is not only possible but probable there were more. The vegetation on Kodiak is very dense in the summer, so it would be difficult to spot a sick bear if it wandered into the brush and died. One positive development from the oil spill was that much of the money from the Exxon Valdez Settlement Fund was used to buy back Refuge lands and critical bear habitat previously lost due to ANCSA.

Next week, I will explore how deer and goat hunters and bear viewers affect Kodiak bears. The debate over how much humans should be allowed to impact wildlife will never end. While it would be wonderful if animals could roam free with no interference from humans, consumptive and non-consumptive human users provide the necessary funds to protect wildlife and the habitat.

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Robin Barefield is the author of three Alaska wilderness mystery novels. To download a free copy of one of her novels, watch her webinar about how she became an author and why she writes Alaska wilderness mysteries. Also, sign up below to subscribe to her free, monthly newsletter on true murder and mystery in Alaska.

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How Do Bears Regulate Their Body Temperature, And What Diseases Do They Get?

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TEMPERATURE REGULATION

A bear’s body temperature is similar to a human’s and ranges between ninety-eight and ninety-nine degrees Fahrenheit (36.7- 37.2C).  Bears do not have sweat glands, though, and the lack of sweat glands coupled with their insulating fur can make staying cool on a hot, sunny day a challenge. Bears employ a variety of techniques to solve this problem, including resting in the shade, stretching out on their bellies on the cool ground, panting like a dog, sitting or lying in a cold stream or the ocean, sprawling on snow patches, and shaking off water when they emerge from a stream. They are also able to dissipate heat through their paws which are well supplied with blood vessels, and they lose heat through areas with minimal fur such as the face, ears, nose, belly and the insides of the legs. To cool down, bears sometimes recline on the ground and spread their legs wide.

 

DISEASES

Bears are susceptible to a variety of diseases and parasites. Internal parasites include the trichinella worm (trichinosis), trematodes, nematodes, lungworms, hookworms, flukes, blood parasites, intestinal worms, and tapeworms. Tapeworms are especially prevalent in Kodiak bears because they eat large quantities of raw fish. It is not uncommon to see a bear in the summer months with a several-foot-long tapeworm trailing from its anus. Notice the tapeworm in this photo.
Bears can also suffer from many of the same ailments that affect other mammals, including arthritis. Traumatic injuries can be very devastating to a bear, especially if the injuries affect the bear’s ability to procure food or protect himself. Poor teeth can directly impact a bear’s ability to eat, and any factor leading to inadequate fat reserves before hibernation can result in starvation.

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The Kodiak Archipelago is home to 3500 bears and 13,600 humans, so how do the bears and humans interact? Next week,  I’ll tackle the topic of bears and humans.

I invite you to watch my webinar about how I became a published author and the true-life adventures that provide the inspiration for my Alaska wilderness mysteries. Stay until the end of the webinar and receive a free e-book of one of my novels. This is the link : http://bit.ly/2pcCOo6 . Also, please sign up below for my real-life mystery newsletter.

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A Kodiak Bear’s Fur and Claws

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A Kodiak bear’s coat may range from dark brown to nearly blonde.  Bears are typically darker in the fall when they begin growing their winter coat, and older bears are often darker than younger bears, but these are just generalizations.  One cub from a litter may be light, while his brother is dark brown.

 Cubs often have a natal collar, a white band around the neck and shoulder.  Some cubs have no natal collar, and others have a collar that is bright and distinct.  This band gradually fades over time, and it has usually disappeared by the age of three, but occasionally, you will see a four-or-five-year-old bear that still has remnants of a collar.

 A bear’s fur is an excellent insulator.  It is dense and oily, keeping the bear warm and preventing water from penetrating.  The fur consists of two types of hair, the “guard hair” and the “under-fur.”  Bears shed both the guard hair and underfur annually.  In the summer, Kodiak bears often appear shaggy and matted.  The bear in the photo below looks as if she is sporting dreadlocks.  To help remove their fur, bears rub against trees and rocks, often standing on their hind legs, backing up to a tree and rubbing up and down.  It is humorous to watch a bear “scratch his back” in this manner.  While the old coat is shedding, a new coat is growing, and by September on Kodiak, most bears appear darker in color and well-groomed.  The old, loose fur is gone, and only the new fur remains.

 

CLAWS

Brown bears have non-retractable claws up to four-inches long.  The claws of young bears are typically dark brown and then lighten with age.  Although some young bears have light-colored claws, beautiful, pearly-white claws are usually seen on an old sow or boar.  Look at the photos and notice the difference in claw coloration between the sub-adult bear and the old sow.

Brown bears use their claws to defend themselves and fight with other bears, but Kodiak bears primarily use their claws to dig for roots and other food and gripping food.  Even though their claws look large and clumsy to us, they are quite dexterous and capable of manipulating small objects. Kodiak cubs use their claws to climb trees, but adult brown bears are poor climbers due to their body weight and the structure of their claws.  It is not uncommon to see a sow send her small cubs up a tree if she senses danger, and they stay in the tree until she vocalizes the signal that it is safe for them to come down.

What Senses do Kodiak Bears Use Most?

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Bears, like all animals, depend on their senses to survive.  They use their senses for many things, but especially to find food and detect possible threats. A bear’s sense of smell is its most important sense.  A brown bear’s sense of smell is three to four times more sensitive than that of an average dog, and it is difficult for humans with our relatively poor sense of smell to comprehend what this means and how much a bear depends on this sense.  A bear uses his nose to find food, locate a mate, and avoid danger.  A bear downwind from you may smell your presence and run from you while you are still several hundred yards away from him.

A bear’s second most important sense is hearing.  Brown bears have relatively small ears, but they can detect noises at a great distance.  A bear can hear the click of a camera shutter over the sound of the wind, crashing waves, or a swiftly running river.

     For a long time, biologists believed bears had poor eyesight, but scientific research has shown a bear’s eyesight is similar to that of a human’s.  Bears are not nearsighted as was once believed, and they can see colors. Brown bears often stand on their hind legs to increase their sight distance and get a better look at an object.  It is not a sign of aggression when a bear stands on its hind legs; the bear is just trying to gain more sensory input.

 

The important thing to remember is a bear does not use each one of these senses independent of the others.  If a bear sees something unfamiliar in the distance, such as a person, a boat, or even another bear, he may stand on his hind legs to get a better look, raise his nose to attempt to smell the interloper, and pick up his ears to try to ascertain unfamiliar sounds.  If he still cannot determine what the object is, he may approach it for a closer look or circle downwind from the object so that he can smell it better.

Next week, I’ll write about a bear’s fur and claws.  Does a bear’s fur change with age?  Why are some Kodiak bears blonde and others a chocolate-colored?  What is the white ring some cubs have around their neck?  How do the claws change with age?

If you haven’t signed up yet for my free monthly newsletter, don’t wait.  You won’t want to miss this month’s newsletter about crime and justice during the Alaska Gold Rush written by Alaska historian and author Steven Levi.

 

How Strong is a Kodiak Bear, and How Fast can They Run?

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To understand how strong a Kodiak bear is, you only need to observe one effortlessly running up a steep slope, quickly digging a den out of the side of a mountain, or easily flipping huge boulders weighing several hundred pounds. Kodiak bears have a heavy skeleton and a thick layer of muscles. The hump on their backs is a mass of muscles that aids in their ability to dig and provides a powerful striking force with their forepaws.DSC_0033

Brown bears have a shuffling, lumbering walk. They are flat-footed and pigeon-toed, and they walk with both legs on one side moving together. Their paws strike the ground in the following sequence: Right forepaw then left hind paw then left forepaw followed by the right hind paw. When walking at a fast pace, the hind paw is often placed well in front of the forepaw track.

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Brown bears can run very fast over a short distance and have been clocked at 35 to 40 mph (56 to 64 kph). Even over a long distance, they can quickly cover a great deal of ground and climb steep banks with ease.

Many of our guests are surprised to learn that Kodiak bears can swim, but brown bears are excellent swimmers and can swim for a mile or two to cross a bay or lake. A brown bear swims with his body below the water and his head and nose slightly above the waterline. Although bears are strong swimmers, they seem ill-at-ease and vulnerable when swimming, and when approached by a boat, a bear may give up his plan DSC_0116to swim across the bay and return to the shore he just left, even if he is closer to the opposite shore. On sunny summer days, it is common to see Kodiak bears lying in water or splashing in the ocean to cool themselves, and some bears while even dive underwater to catch salmon. Snorkeling is a funny fishing technique employed by a few bears where the bear walks through chest-deep water and submerges his head to look for fish.

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I never grow tired of watching bears. Sometimes they amuse me when I watch the interactions between a sow and her cubs, and other times I get caught up in the drama when two bears square off against each other. I am always amazed, though, by their tremendous strength and their ability to cover a great deal of distance in the blink of an eye. The combination of these two characteristics makes them the rulers of their domain.

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How Intelligent are Kodiak Bears and Can they Communicate?

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You don’t have to spend much time watching Kodiak bears to realize how intelligent they are. Some researchers consider bears to be as intelligent as primates, and others believe a bear is as smart as a dog. Intelligence is difficult to measure, though, and to compare the intelligence of bears to that of other animals is a guessing game. It is clear that bears learn quickly and remember what they learn, and unfortunately, this can be to the bear’s detriment if he learns to associate food with humans. Bears can adapt to environmental changes or unique situations, and they will remember what they learned from a single situation or experience.DSC_0111

Bears are only able to make a limited range of sounds, and they do not have the necessary muscles for facial expressions. They can’t curl a lip like dogs do, and their small ears don’t allow the expressive maneuvers of cats, but bears do communicate with each other by posturing, attitude, and vocalization. A sow may send her cubs up a tree with a woofing sound or call them to her side by popping her jaws. Many bear vocalizations sound alike to a human’s ears, but bears can differentiate the sounds and understand what they mean.

DSC_0199We often hear bears growl while fishing near each other, and sows frequently growl at their cubs to reprimand them. A loud roar is a much more serious vocalization than a growl, and a grunt or a woofing noise often signifies a distressed or upset bear. A bear will grunt or woof at us if he is surprised by our presence, and this vocalization sometimes precedes a lunge or a false charge. The message delivered by a vocalization has as much to do with the message giver as it does with the vocalization. A large boar needs only to stomp his feet or issue a sharp “woof,” and smaller bears flee his presence. Those same actions and vocalizations delivered by a sub-adult bear likely would go unnoticed.

Bears communicate with humans just as they do with other bears, and understanding their language or choosing a guide who understands their language is important if you plan to spend time in the wilderness in bear country. Correctly interpreting vocal signals as well as body language and posturing may alert you to back away from a stressed or agitated bear.

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