EXPLORING THE WORLD'S LARGEST BROWN BEARS

[grrraaahhh]

Arguably the most popular topic as it relates to brown bears: where do find the heavyweights and just how heavy do they get? The following thread addresses these questions and a lot more as they relate to the largest brown bears in the world.




In this regard, there is some reason to believe that in accordance with the hypothesis of (Rausch, R. 1963) the large bears in southern Alaska and British Columbia, there occurs the proliferation of large forms U.arctos on the Kamchatka Peninsula, Sakhalin and Amur region which is also associated with its habitat in these areas are many populations of anadromous Pacific salmon - genus Oncorhynchus. The point, apparently, not only in the overlapping ranges of salmon and large subspecies of brown bear at the present time, but especially of trophic relationships that evolved between the four-legged predators and salmon on the Pacific coast of Beringia in the individual stages of the Late Pleistocene. These coastal bears are of large size and wide skulls that has been associated with use of spawning Pacific salmon (Onchorhynchus spp.) by Kurten [1973]. More specifically, bears with the relatively widest zygomatic arch, inhabiting Kamchatka and Kodiak Island, share their ranges with spawning grounds of the two largest species of salmon (sockeye [O. Nerka] and Chinook [O. Tshawytscha]). There is little doubt that the first brown bears inhabiting coastal regions of the Okhotsk and Bering Seas during the Wisconsin also had access to anadromous salmon (Cherniavskii & Krechmar, 2001).



Pink Salmon Distribution in the North Pacific, 2004









Above: Kamchatka brown bear.








Above: Kamchatka brown bear.



Salmon Ecoregions

In Sakhalin, there are six distinct ecoregions within the larger framework of the Pacific Rim. These regions were determined based on catchments and nearshore and ocean systems that salmon use, each with their own set of physical characteristics.





Masu/cherry

* Scientific name: Oncorhynchus masu
* Endemic to Asia (native range includes Japan, Korea and Russian Far East)
* Locally abundant, but not an important commercial species
* Grows up to 70 cm in length or 6 kg in weight, lives up to 6 years, anadromous life history

Sakhalin Taimen

* Scientific name: Hucho perryi
* Endemic to Asia (native range includes Japan and Russian Far East)
* Rare, caught occasionally as bycatch in salmon fishery
* Grows up to 2 m in length or 100 kg in weight, very long lived (>20 yrs), amphidromous life history

Pink

* Officially created by mayoral decree in 2009.
* Wide distribution across the North Pacific (native to both Asia and North America)
* Very abundant, important commercial species
* Grows up to 60 cm in length or 3 kg in weight, two year life span, anadromous life history










Above: Kodiak brown bear.






Above: Kodiak brown bear.






Above: Katmai National Park.



Above: Katmai National Park.



















To be continued.....

[grrraaahhh]

Administrative Note: It is hard to see now, but this thread or a future version of it will be one of the more popular forum threads. For now, the thread remains by in large inactive.



The Biggest of the Big—The Brown Bears of Alaska and Russia’s Far East

Posted by Jordan Schaul of The Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center on April 30, 2012



If you can get past the concept that all grizzlies are brown bears, but not all brown bears are grizzlies—a source of great confusion to some—there is an opportunity to learn about the most wide-ranging species of bear in the world, and one of the most wide-ranging mammals on Earth.

Although “grizzly bear” is used interchangeably with “brown bear” up here in Alaska, “grizzly bear” really refers to any brown bear found in interior North America. Bears found within interior regions of Alaska and Canada as well as remnant interior populations in the western portion of the contiguous US are grizzly bears (Ursus arctos horribilis).

There are only about 1200 grizzly bears found in the lower 48. They primarily exist in designated Recovery Zones in Montana, Wyoming, Washington, and Idaho. Bears of other interior regions and sometime even coastal zones in Eurasia may be referred to as grizzlies, to add to the confusion.

In contrast, there are approximately 32,000 brown bears living in Alaska. Some of Alaska’s islands like Admiralty Island in the Southeast part of the state and the Kodiak Archipelago off the southern coast of mainland Alaska are home to some of the densest populations of brown bears in the world.

Kodiak is home to about 3400 brown bears of a particularly large subspecies. The the Kodiak brown bear (Ursus arctos middendorffi) is often touted as the largest terrestrial carnivore on the planet. Because of access to an abundance of fish Alaska’s coastal brown bears, similar to the Kodiak, can attain weights upwards of 1400 pounds.

Here at the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center, we currently have Alaska coastal bears, a grizzly, and Kodiak brown bears, as well as two American black bears. Most of these are permanent residents at the facility.


Just across the Bering Strait from Alaska lives another gigantic brown bear–the Kamchatka brown bear (Ursus arctos beringianus) or the Far Eastern brown bear. Considered to be the ancestor of the Kodiak, the Kamchatka brown bears are dark brown and the largest carnivorans in Eurasia. These are the bears that were featured in the PBS special Walking with Giants: The Grizzlies of Siberia. The film documents the work of Charlie Russel and Maureen Ebbs–two naturalists who sought to discover some insight into the lives of the bears of the famed Kamchatka Peninsula of Siberia.

The black grizzly or Ussuri brown bear (Ursus arctos lasiotus) is another big bear occasionally attaining a size greater than the Kamchatka brown bear. These bears are found in the Amur and Ussuri River regions of the Russian Far East, northeastern China, the Korean Peninsula and Japan.

In the Amur region these bears cross paths with Siberian (Aumr) tigers on rare occasions, primarily because there are so few Siberian tigers left in the world. Tiger attacks on bears have been reported when the bears were in hibernaculum as well while ambulatory. Supposedly, the brown bears are attacked with more frequency than the smaller Asiatic black bears because of habitat preference and an inability to climb trees. But these bears also attack the typically smaller tigers on occasion. The bears are more commonly known to track tigers, following the big cats’ foot prints to ungulate kills, where they ultimately force the cat off the carcass, taking possession of it.

“Huang Di” which translates in Chinese to “King” is the name of the celebrity Ussuri brown bear (Manchurian brown bear) who calls the San Diego Zoo his home. Nicknamed “Blackie,” Huang Di is one of the largest and most beautiful bears I have ever seen. The black bear is a gentle giant, standing nearly 5 ft at the shoulders and weighing in at nearly 900 lbs. Today his enclosure sits adjacent to two young brother grizzlies. When I last visited Huang Di who was born at the Bejing Zoo in 1984 he lumbered over toward the large metal divider, that when closed, safely separated the younger bears from the big Ussuri brown bear in the adjacent bear grotto. Smell or sound of this gigantic boar in their proximity sent them scrambling to a distant hiding place on the other side of their enclosure.


Source: newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2012/04/30/the-biggest-of-the-big-the-brown-bears-of-alaska-and-the-far-east/