Eurasian Brown Bear

Taxobox
name = Eurasian Brown Bear
status = LR/lc
status_ref = [IUCN2006|assessors=Bear Specialist Group|year=1996|id=41688|title=Ursus arctos|downloaded=12 May 2006 ]


image_width = 250px
image_caption =
regnum = Animalia
phylum = Chordata
classis = Mammalia
ordo = Carnivora
familia = Ursidae
genus = "Ursus"
species = "U. arctos"
subspecies = "U. arctos arctos"
trinomial = "Ursus arctos arctos"
trinomial_authority = Linnaeus, 1758
range_

range_map_width =
range_map_caption = The Eurasian Brown Bear ("Ursus arctos arctos") is a subspecies of the brown bear ("Ursus arctos"), and found across northern Eurasia. The brown bear is also known as the "common brown bear", and colloquially by many other names.

Description

The Eurasian brown bear has brown fur, which can shift from yellow-brownish to dark brown, red brown, and almost black in some cases. The fur is dense to varying degree and the hair can grow up to 10 cm in length. The shape of the head is normally quite round with relatively small and round ears, a wide skull and a mouth equipped with 42 teeth, including predatory teeth. It has a powerful bone structure, large paws, equipped with big claws, which can grow up to 10 cm in length. The weight varies depending on habitat and time of the year. A full grown male weighs on average 135–205 kg (297-460 lb) and a female 90–150 kg (200-330 lb). The largest Eurasian brown bear recorded was 481 kg (1,058 lb) and was nearly 2.5 m (8.2 ft) long. [Wood, The Guinness Book of Animal Facts and Feats. Sterling Pub Co Inc (1983), ISBN 978-0851122359]

The bears east of Ural have to a larger extent brighter and more reddish colors. The Asian bears also seem to be more aggressive than the European bears.

History

Brown bears were present in Britain until around 500 A.D. when they were exterminated through hunting.cite web | url = http://www.toothandclaw.org.uk/species.asp | title = Brown Bear | work = | publisher = Tooth & Claw| accessdate = 2008-01-05]

European brown bears were used in Ancient Rome for fighting in arenas. The strongest bears apparently came from Caledonia and Dalmatia.cite book | author = Pastoureau, Michel | title = L’ours; Histoire d’un roi dechu | year = 2007 | pages = pp.419 | id = ISBN 202021542X ]

In antiquity, the European brown bear was largely carnivorous, with 80% of its diet consisting of animal matter. However, as its habitat increasingly disappeared, meat consisted of only 40% of its dietary intake in the late Middle Ages, till modern times where meat now amounts to little more than 10-15% of its diet.

Unlike in America, where an average of two people a year are killed by bears, Europe (specifically Scandinavia) only has records of three fatal bear attacks in the last century.

Species origin

Modern research [ [http://www.bearproject.info/norsk/bearproject.php Det Skandinaviske Bjørneprosjektet] ] has made it possible to track the origin of the species. It is difficult to tell anything about the brown bear, but it might have developed about 5 million years ago. Researchers have also found that the Eurasian brown bear was separated about 850,000 years ago, one branch based in Western Europe and the other branch in Russia, Eastern Europe and Asia. Through research of "mitochondrial DNA" (mtDNA) researchers have found that the European family has been divided into two subgroups, one in the Iberian peninsula and the other in the Balkans.

There are four major populations in Scandinavia, all with their core area in Sweden. By analyzing the mtDNA of the southern population researchers have found that they probably have come from populations in the Pyrenees and the Cantabrian Mountains in southern France and Spain. Bears from these populations spread to southern Scandinavia after the last ice age. The northern bear populations has its origin in the Finnish/Russian population. Their ancestors probably survived the ice age in the ice-free areas, west of the Ural mountains, and thereafter spread to Northern Europe.

Spread

Although their inclusion as of Least Concern on the 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species refers to their global population, the fact is that local populations are increasingly becoming scarcer. And as the IUCN itself adds

Least Concern does not always mean that species are not at risk. There are declining species that are evaluated as Least Concern.

Brown bears could once be found from Ireland in the west, to Japan in the east, from Nordkalotten in the north to the Atlas mountains in the south.

It is unlikely that there are still brown bears in the Atlas mountains and some sources consider them extinct there. The brown bear has long been extinct in Britain and Ireland, but it still exists in northern Europe and in Russia. There is a tiny population in the Pyrenees, on the border between Spain and France, which is on the edge of extinction, as well as an equally threatened group in the Cantabrian Mountains in Spain. There are also populations in the Abruzzi mountains and in the Trentino valley in Italy.

Larger populations can be found in Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria and Romania, but these are isolated populations. Most of the brown bears in Europe can be found in Russia, however, it was near extinction due to extensive hunting prior the Russian revolution of 1917.

The largest population is found east of the Ural mountain range, in the large Siberian woods, as well as in parts of central Asia (former Soviet states, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kashmir, India, central China and the island of Hokkaidō in Japan.

See also

Bear conservation

References

External links

* [http://www.bearproject.info/norsk/bearproject.php Det Skandinaviske Bjørneprosjektet]
* [http://www.lcie.org/ Large Carnivore Initiative for Europe]