Bears of British Columbia, Canada
British Columbia is home to Grizzly, Black and the rare Kermode, or Spirit bear, who thrive in the temperate rainforest.
British Columbia is home to 50% of Canada's grizzly population.
Over half of the world's temperate rainforests have already been destroyed.
A quarter of the world's rainforest that remains is found on the west coast of British Columbia.
On Canada's Pacific coast, between the northern tip of Vancouver Island and the Alaska border, lies the 8-million-acre Great Bear Rainforest.
Snow-capped mountains and steep, forested slopes, which boast giant cedars, Sitka spruce, western hemlock and balsam firm characterize the region.
Rich salmon streams weave through valley bottoms salmon filled fjords.
The ecosystem of the Great Bear Rain forest is amazingly diverse and is home to salmon, orca whales, dall porpoise, elephant seals, sea lions, bald and golden eagles, wolves, cougars, marbled murrelets and bears.
This unique forest habitat is a result of 10,000 years of post-glacial activity.
BLACK BEARS
Black bears are large, elusive mammals.
Their heads are small relative to their massive bodies.
Black bears walk on four powerful limbs, but can also appear quite human-like when they stand on their hind legs.
Smaller than their cousins, the black bear is an agile climber, even in adulthood.
Black bears are alert creatures, with a sense of smell more highly developed than other large animals, with exceptional hearing but apparently only average eyesight.
Black bears can run up to 35 miles per hour, climb trees, and are powerful swimmers.
The black bear's diet is similar to that of the brown bears, omnivores who will eat almost anything, but it is more markedly herbivorous.
An insatiable appetite helps the black bear achieve its size, which, for an adult female, ranges in weight from 150-250 pounds and from 200 to more than 600 pounds for an adult male.
The black bear's first mate at an age of 3.5 to 4.5 years, usually during June and July.
The gestation period lasts about 220 days and the young are born in January or February in the mother's winter den.
At birth the cubs are blind and deaf with a sparsely developed coat, weighing only .5 lbs to one pound.
They begin to grow rapidly on a diet composed exclusively of sow's milk, which is much higher in solids, total fats and proteins that cows milk.
Life is not easy for a sow with cubs as they must always be on the lookout for aggressive males and constantly concerned for their cub's safety.
Although they need nutrition more desperately than the already fatter males, there is rarely an equal opportunity for the smaller females to take advantage of a good food resource.
The presence of a black bear may be intimidating to some people, but the black bear has a natural fear of humans and will most likely run away from an encounter.
The black bear is quite shy and is rarely seen, even with other bears, except as a family unit of mother and offspring.
BROWN OR GRIZZLY BEARS
Brown bears (Ursus arctos) weigh between 300 and 860 pounds and can be up to 9'6" in total body length.
They are usually dark brown in color but can vary from a light cream color to almost black.
The long, outer guard hairs of the grizzly are often tipped with white, silver, or cream giving the bear the grizzled appearance its name denotes.
Coat colour is not a good characteristic for distinguishing between black and grizzly bears.
Other external physical features are much more useful.
The grizzly has a large hump over the front shoulders.
This hump is a muscle mass used to power forelimbs in digging.
Grizzlies
a large rounded head with a concave facial profile.
The small rounded, furred ears are set well apart on the head in contrast to its narrowly set eyes.
The black bear, on the other hand, has no shoulder hump and has a long, straight facial profile and large ears.
Tracks and claws also distinguish the two species.
Grizzly claws are much longer and the toes are close together in a relatively straight line, while a black bear's toes are splayed in a more rounded arc. In general, but not invariably, grizzlies are larger than black bears.
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