Tag Archives: Kodiak Brown Bear

How Do You Estimate the Size of a Kodiak Bear?

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When our summer guests see a bear, they immediately want to know its size. They ask, “How much does it weigh?” or, “Is it a big bear or a small bear?” If you see a Kodiak bear ten feet in front of you on a trail, it looks huge, but the same bear walking along the beach a mile away appears small. Guides who have spent years watching bears can easily tell you whether a bear is big, small, or medium-sized, but it’s not easy even for an experienced guide to judge the exact size of a bear from a distance. In this week’s post, I will discuss the indicators a guide uses to judge the relative size of a bear, but first, let me share some facts about the weight of Kodiak bears at different ages as they grow.

Kodiak bears gain weight and add fat in the summer when food is abundant, and then they burn off this fat during hibernation, so their weights vary from fall to spring. Yearling cubs weigh approximately 135 lbs (61.36 kg). When they are two-and one-half-years old, males begin to outgrow the females, and weights vary greatly. Females reach their full adult size at approximately five years when they weigh between 350 and 500 lbs. (159.09 – 227.27 kg). Males continue to grow, gaining about 100 lbs. (45.45 kg) per year until they are eight to ten years old and weigh 500 to 1000 lbs. (227.27 – 454.54 kg). In the wild, an 800 lb. ( 362.87 kg) female would be a huge sow, and a 1500 lb. ( 680.39 kg) male is a maximum-sized Kodiak bear. The largest Kodiak bear on record lived in the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo and weighed 1670 lbs. (757 kg.).

When you see a bear on a salmon stream or watch him through binoculars, you might not be able to determine how big he is, but you should be able to tell whether he or she is relatively large or small.

Shape:

Look at the bear’s overall shape. Does the bear appear square or rectangular? Young, small bears look square from a distance, while larger Kodiak bears have a rectangular shape. A larger, older boar also appears bulky through the rump and midsection.

Legs:

Are the bear’s legs long or short, and thin or heavy?

Big males have long legs. The front legs on a large male appear heavy and do not taper at the ankles. A young male brown bear also has long legs, but they look lanky, not thick and heavy. A Female, even an old female, has shorter legs, making her body appear closer to the ground. A female’s front legs taper at the ankles.

Head Neck and Shoulders:

Note the size of the ears in relation to the rest of the head. The ears on a large male or female bear appear small compared to the rest of the head, and on a large male, the ears appear wide-set. The ears on a young, small bear look large in comparison to the rest of the head and seem closer together. Now, look at the shape of the head. A large boar has a wide, square face with a thick, heavy muzzle. A sow has a small, narrow head with a tapered muzzle, and a young bear has a long, triangular head.

The massive muscles on the head of a large boar create a furrow down the middle of the forehead, and its muscular shoulders are wider than its head. A female has narrow shoulders the same width as her head, and a young bear has a long, relatively thin neck.

Claws:

Old, big bears of either sex often have distinctive white claws, but a male can be big without being old, so a big boar might have dark claws, and occasionally, a younger, smaller bear has white claws.

Conclusion:

If you’ve never seen a Kodiak bear in the wild, how can you tell if it has small ears, broad shoulders, or tapered ankles? If you see several bears at once, you can study and note the physical differences between big bears and smaller, younger bears, but if you see a single bear walking the beach, these general clues to size might not help you. My husband has been a bear guide for most of his life, and he says the best clues are:

1. The shape: is the bear rectangular (large) or square (small)?
2. Does the bear appear bulky and muscular (large) or does it have long, lanky limbs (small)?
3. Finally, and this point is often overlooked, how does the bear move? Watch the bear awhile. Does he walk or run in jerky movements (small), or are his movements slow and deliberate (large)?

Examine the photos in this post. Can you tell which bears are large and which are small?

Next week, I’ll share some clues on how to differentiate between male and female Kodiak bears. It’s not as easy as you might think, and unlike in the cartoons, females don’t wear bows in their hair.

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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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Mammals Endemic to Kodiak Island

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How can any mammal be endemic to an island in the North Pacific? That mammal did not evolve on that island, so it had to arrive on the island at some point. I guess the answer depends on your definition of endemic. Most biologists believe that if a species was present on an island when the island became separated from nearby land masses, and if that species continued to survive on the island, then the species is endemic or native to the island. In other words, the species was not transported to that island by man. Experts list six mammals they consider endemic to Kodiak Island. These are the Kodiak Bear, the red fox, the river otter, the short-tailed weasel, the tundra vole, and the little brown bat. Over the next few weeks, I will discuss each of these mammals. I have already written several posts on Kodiak Bears, so I will mention them briefly here, and then in subsequent posts, I will focus my attention on the other five mammals.

At the end of the Pleistocene epoch, 12,000 years ago, ice sheets covered the North Pacific, connecting Kodiak Island to the mainland. At this time, bears and other mammals could roam freely between the mainland and Kodiak, and we assume that this was when the six mammals we consider native to Kodiak Island arrived on the island. When the ice receded and water levels rose, these mammals were trapped on Kodiak Island, where they adapted, evolved, and thrived. Humans would not arrive for another 4500 years.

After the ice receded, vegetation was scarce, but conditions slowly improved. Vegetation grew and became the jungle-like growth we know on the island today, and salmon runs became established in the many rivers and streams here. More than 3500 bears presently inhabit the Kodiak Island Archipelago, the largest number to have ever lived here. The bears thrive on prolific berry crops and rich salmon runs. Many mammals have been introduced to Kodiak over the years, and while some have negatively impacted the vegetation here, none seem to have affected brown bear abundance and vigor.DSC_0040

Kodiak brown bears exist only on the islands of the Kodiak Archipelago. The archipelago is located in the western Gulf of Alaska, approximately 250 miles (408 km) southwest of Anchorage. The island group is 177 miles (283.2 km) long and 67 miles (107.2 km) wide at its widest point. Kodiak, the most prominent island in the group, has a land mass of 3,588 square miles (8,975 km²) and is the second largest island in the United States.

In 2005, the brown bear density on Kodiak Island was estimated at 0.7 bears/square mile (271.2 bears/1000 km²), making it one of the densest brown bear populations in the world. This density estimate is a bit misleading, however, since bears are not evenly distributed across the archipelago. In the spring, summer, and fall, the bear density is much greater along the coast and salmon streams, while there are fewer bears in alpine regions. During the past decade, the Kodiak bear population has been slowly increasing. Recent genetic research has shown that while Kodiak brown bears are closely related to Alaska Peninsula brown bears and brown bears in Kamchatka, Russia, Kodiak bears have been isolated since ice sheets receded at the end of the Pleistocene epoch 10,000 to 12,000 years ago.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll write posts about red foxes, river otters, short-tailed weasels, tundra voles, and little brown bats.

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Kodiak Bear Hibernation (Part One)

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Hibernation is one of the most amazing physiological adaptations in nature, and the more I learn about bear hibernation, the more the process fascinates me. Most bears have recently left their dens here on Kodiak, and they are slowly restarting their digestive systems as they prepare for the summer feeding season. Over the next two weeks, I’ll post about denning and hibernation for Kodiak bears. I wrote a post a year ago about den emergence on Kodiak, but this time, I will discuss hibernation in more detail.

Bears hibernate in the winter to conserve energy when weather conditions are harsh, and food is scarce. While hibernating bears experience a degree of dormancy, it is nowhere near as extreme as it is in many other species such as bats, squirrels, and rodents. On Kodiak where winters are relatively mild, bears often go into and out of hibernation and some bears (mostly boars) do not hibernate at all. It is common to see bear tracks in the snow all winter on Kodiak.

Bears typically enter their dens in the order of pregnant females followed by lone females and then females with cubs. Males are the last to enter their dens, and large, old boars in particular may not hibernate at all. Denning conditions vary from year to year depending on the weather conditions and the availability of food.

The time of den emergence in the spring is also dependent upon temperature and weather conditions and varies by sex and age. Males typically leave their dens first, followed by single females and then sows with cubs. Sows with newborn cubs are the last to emerge   Males usually spend three to five months in hibernation while pregnant females may hibernate as long as seven months.

While there is an instinctual aspect to denning, it also appears to be a learned behavior that sows teach their cubs. Perhaps the most important information the mother bear relays to her cubs is how to choose a den site. On Kodiak, there are few natural rock caves, so bears must dig their dens into the sides of the mountains or the sides of snow banks. Lawrence Van Daele, Victor Barnes Jr., and Roger Smith studied and compared denning behaviors on the northern part of the island to those on southwestern Kodiak. On the northern portion of Kodiak where the mountains are taller, they determined that the bears in their study group denned at an average elevation of 2180 ft. (665m). The bears in this region preferred steep slopes in alpine habitat for their dens, probably because the dens were high enough that the soil remained frozen throughout the winter, and the den structure remained stable. On southwestern Kodiak Island with its gentler topography, bears denned at an average elevation of 1499 ft. (457 m) and preferred midslope habitats near alder thickets. The researchers believe that the alder roots help stabilize these dens that were dug in loose, unfrozen soil. It is important that a bear chooses an area for his den that will remain stable throughout the winter and won’t collapse, but dens often do collapse in the spring and summer after the bears have emerged, and the bears are forced to dig new dens the following fall.

Before a bear digs and enters his den, he eats a large amount of food to build his fat layer. Berries provide natural sugars, and a bear may gain as many as 20,000 calories per day from eating berries in the late summer and fall. Bears also drink large quantities of water and consume foods high in protein, such as salmon. Brown bears add six to eight inches (15.24 to 20.32 cm) of fat before hibernation. They stop eating shortly before they enter their dens.

During hibernation, bears do not eat, urinate, or defecate. They curl up to conserve heat, but they may change position in the den. They are sensitive to their surroundings, and hey may awaken and move about or even temporarily leave the den. Pregnant sows give birth while in hibernation, and they can lactate to nurse their cubs. They can also lick and groom their cubs.DSC_0208

Bears emerge slowly from their dens in the spring. A bear may go in and out of his den many times over the course of several days before leaving his den for good. This is especially true of sows with newborn cubs who may stay near the den for one to two weeks, slowly allowing the small cubs to adapt to the outside world. Upon emergence, bears are groggy and sluggish, and it takes time for their bodily functions to return to normal. Soon after leaving the den, a bear will pass a fecal plug that may be as long as two feet in length (61 cm). This plug consists of digested food that has accumulated in the lower intestine as a result of not defecating all winter. After leaving the den, bears drink large quantities of water and slowly begin to eat new plant shoots.

Next week I will write about the amazing physiological adaptations bears employ during hibernation and how and why these adaptations are being studied by human medical researchers.

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