Latest Bear Stories
Last week my husband and I bought season passes to Lagoon so that we might entertain our 3-year-old boy this summer. On the morning we bought the passes, our kid wanted to ride the train over and over and over again. We must have gone more than 10 times and got to see the animals on the "zoo" portion again and again. We noticed that the tigers were extremely agitated by the train every time we came around and usually would even roar at us. The next animal was even more pitiful. We never saw...
A federal judge has denied the Bush administrations call to delay a decision that would determine whether polar bears should receive special protection under the Endangered Species Act.Judge Claudia Wilken gave the administration until May 15 to make its final decision, ruling that any further delay would put the government in breach of its public obligations."Defendants have been in violation of the law requiring them to publish the listing determination for nearly 120 days," she...
The German city of Nuremberg and officials at the city's zoo introduced a new polar bear cub, named Flocke, to the public Tuesday.  For months, the 4-month-old cub had only been seen in videos and photographs."Not only Nuremberg, but the whole world has been in Flocke fever," Horst Foerther, the city's deputy mayor, told the Associated Press. Foerther said the cub has attracted millions of hits on Google.Amid a ceremony filled with fanfare and broadcast live around the...
Hikers and campers venturing into bear country this spring may be safer armed with 8-ounce cans of bear pepper spray than with guns, according to a new study led by a Brigham Young University bear biologist.Thomas S. Smith, associate professor of wildlife science, has conducted field work among bears for 16 years and has never used bear spray, although he carries it faithfully. "I wish I had more scary stories to share, but I've behaved myself," said Smith, emphasizing that caution...
SPRING MILLS, Pa. - A Westmoreland County man is having a memorable 2007 bear season. Tom Wisniowski bagged a rare albino black bear Monday on the season's opening day. The female cub weighed 47 pounds. Wisniowski told The Sentinel in Lewistown that conditions were difficult and at first he thought he was looking at a coyote. But when the bear got a bit closer, he could tell it was an unusual bear. Wisniowski was hunting with Jeff Gowen of Evansburg and Richard Marther and Andrew Duncan, both...
Life Time Fitness, Inc. (NYSE:LTM), a national operator of distinctive and large health and fitness centers, today announced that the Company finalized the purchase of the White Bear Racquet & Swim club in White Bear Lake, Minnesota, on September 1, 2007. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed. "We are excited to add the White Bear Lake club, which maintains a nearly 20-year-old, proud tradition, to our family of Life Time Fitness centers," said Mike Gerend, Life Time Fitness...
ATLANTA, Idaho -- Jabbed with tranquilizers, her ear pierced with a green ID tag, Twister traded her steel transport box for freedom after a bumpy 90-mile ride into central Idaho's mountains. The yearling black bear orphan stepped from an open cage onto a dusty truck bed, dropped softly to the ground and disappeared into the woods.Twister was separated from her mother by a rare mountain tornado in June 2006. Raised at the Idaho Black Bear Rehabilitation Center in a Boise suburb, the...
BERLIN (AP) - Berlin Zoo's star polar bear cub Knut welcomed his millionth visitor Thursday, showing he hasn't lost his drawing power even if he's growing up.Ilja and Vincent Arends, a couple from Rotterdam, Netherlands, were together credited with being the millionth admirers, and given flowers and stuffed Knut bear toys.The zoo, which had 2.3 million visitors last year, says it expects an additional 500,000 this year due to mild weather and the cute bear cub, by now a fixture in German...
By PAUL FOY AMERICAN FORK, Utah - An 11-year-old boy was dragged screaming from his family's tent and killed by a black bear during a Father's Day outing in the Utah wilderness. The boy, his mother, stepfather and a 6-year-old brother were sleeping in a large tent Sunday night in American Fork Canyon, about 30 miles southeast of Salt Lake City, when the stepfather heard the boy scream "something's dragging me."The boy and his sleeping bag were gone. The cut in the nylon tent was so...
MILFORD, Pa. -- Mark Ternent squeezes his bulky frame into the narrow opening of a bear den and shines a flashlight into the eyes of a 200-pound female. Two black bear cubs are suckling, and their mother looks back at Ternent, alert but relaxed. It is early March, and these bears won't come out of hibernation for another six weeks.The wildlife biologist shoots a tranquilizer dart into the mother's rump, but the dart goes into fat, not muscle, slowing absorption into her blood. Ternent waits...
Latest Bear Reference Libraries
The cave bear (Ursus spelaeus) is an extinct species that was found in Europe during the Pleistocene. Its range was large and included areas from Great Britain to Spain, Italy, Poland, the Balkans, areas of Germany, Russia, the Caucuses, Romania, and northern areas of Iran. Large numbers of skeletons have been found in Switzerland, southern Germany, Austria, northern Spain, Hungary, Croatia, and Romania. Because so many fossils have been found throughout Europe, some experts assert that there...
The brown bear (Ursus arctos) can be found in North America and northern areas of Eurasia. There are sixteen recognized subspecies of the brown bear. This is the most widely distributed species of bear in the world, although its range is shrinking. Its range includes the Alaska and a few other areas of the United States, areas of Russia, and Romania and other areas of the Carpathian region, as well as Canada, Sweden, Finland, and the Balkans. The brown bear derives its common name from the...
The giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca), also known as the panda, is a species of bear that is native to southwestern and central western areas of China. Its range includes mountain ranges located primarily in Sichuan province, but pandas can also be found in the Gansu and Shaanxi provinces. It once preferred a habitat within lowland areas, but human encroachment has driven the giant panda into small areas, which contain forested habitats. There are two recognized subspecies of the giant...
The Kamchatka brown bear (Ursus arctos beringianus) is also called the far eastern brown bear. It can be found on the Kamchatka Peninsula, in the Anadyrsky District, on the Kuril Islands and Karaginskiy Island, and along the coastal area of the Sea of Okhotsk. Southward from there, it can be found on the Stanovoy Range and the Shantar Islands. The range of this bear that is not within the former Soviet Union includes Saint Lawrence Island in the Bering Sea. This bear is a subspecies of the...
Brown bears as a group are one of the largest type of bears, second only to polar bears with the Syrian brown bear (Ursus arctos syriacus) being one of the smallest subspecies of brown bears. Found generally in the mountainous areas in the countries of Iran, Iraq and Turkey and in parts of the former Soviet Union to include Abkhazia, Karabakh, Transcaucasia, Talysh and northern Armenia. These bears find hollow birch trees that flourish in the higher elevations, moreso than pine and other...
