Frequently Asked Bear Questions

Do bears have good sense of smell?

Yes, in fact, bears have one of the strongest senses of smell in the animal kingdom. In comparison, a blood hound’s sense of smell is 300 times stronger than a human’s, and a bear’s sense of smell is seven times stronger than a bloodhound’s.

How Far Away Can A Bear Smell Food?

The general consensus is that if the breeze is blowing in the right direction, a bear can smell food up to 20 miles away. That’s a long way! Think of a town or landmark that is 20 miles from your house for some perspective.

It’s important to remember, though, that scent travels with the prevailing wind. If the bear is not downwind from the food source, he won’t be able to smell it.

Do Bears Have Good Hearing?

Bears have an excellent sense of hearing. In fact, they hear twice as well as humans do over a broader spectrum of sound frequencies.

Sound waves are measured in hertz. The definition of a hertz is the cycle per second. For example, 100 Hz is 100 cycles per second. The higher the Hz number, the higher-pitched the sound.

Bears can hear on a spectrum of 40 to 60,000 Hz. On the other hand, humans hear between 20 and 20,000 Hz. Source

For further comparison, think of the high-pitched dog whistle that dogs can hear but humans can’t. Dogs can hear up to 50,000 Hz. which is 17% lower on the scale compared to what bears can hear.

Do Bears See Well?

It’s a commonly held myth that bears have bad eyesight. However, they see just well during daylight hours as humans do. Bears also have excellent night vision.

Like all other mammals with good night vision, they have a reflective membrane at the back of each retina called a tapetum lucidum. The tapetum lucidum reflects light back through the retina, increasing the light available to photoreceptors.

This facilitates good night vision. It’s also the reason why if you were to shine a flashlight on a bear’s eyes at night, they would glow back at you with green or red light.

Most mammals have tapetum lucidums, except for pigs and primates.

Do Bears See Color?

From the Alaska Department of Fish and Game website, researchers from the University of Tennessee trained bears to associate food with different colored containers. The determination from this research is that bears can distinguish between colors very well. Source

How Smart Are Bears?

Bears rank highly among the most intelligent land mammals. Their brains are very large and complex in proportion to their body size. In fact, they have the largest brain proportionate to their body size of any carnivore.

A recent study proved that bears are able to distinguish numerical differences and have intelligence on par with advanced primates.

In the wild, grizzly bears rely upon their memory to catalog where they have found certain foods in the past and can store this information for a decade or more. What’s more, they remember individual bears for years and recognize them and their social ranking from up to 2000 feet away.

Bears that are both in the wild and captivity use tools. This encompasses things like using a stick as a back scratcher or as an extension to get to an out of reach object. Additionally, bears at play will throw sticks or rocks.

Finally, when polar bears hunt walruses, there is an element of danger for the bear due to the animal’s sharp tusks. The Inuit people have many stories of polar bears using rocks or chunks of ice to kill them more efficiently.

How Long Do Bears Live?

Per the species of North America, the American black bear has an average life span of 18 years in the wild. On the other hand, Polar bears live up to 25 years in the wild, as do grizzly bears.

How Fast Are Bears

Here is a comparison of the speed of North American bear species.

• Black Bear– Black bears have a top speed of 30 “48 kph” miles per hour. This would be the top speed that they can do in ideal conditions. The type of terrain that they’re running across, and the condition of the bear are factors that will negatively or positively affect its capacity for speed. For example, a lean bear will be able to outrun a bear that is fat and preparing for hibernation
• Brown Bear– The top speed for a Bown bear is 35 miles per hour ” 56 kph “. This category includes all North American brown bears such as the coastal brown bears of Alaska and Canada and the interior brown bears of the interior of Alaska and Canada and the contiguous United States that are more commonly known as Grizzly bears. As with the black bear’s top speed, the top speed here for brown bears is the top sped that they can do under ideal conditions.
• Polar Bear– I have included a swimming speed for the polar bear since they are a semi aquatic predator. From the Ocean Wide Expeditions website, a polar bear’s top speed is 25 miles per hour ” 40 kph “. These animals can also swim up to 6 miles per hour ” 10 kph “.
• Human– For comparison, the very top speed that the most superbly talented and conditioned human athletes can run in ideal conditions is 28 miles per hour for around 100 meters.

Are Pandas Bears?

Giant pandas are bears. On the other hand, red pandas are not. Biologists have debated the classification of giant pandas for decades. Anatomically, they have the most in common with bears. However, they also share some traits in common with raccoons. Scientists have debated whether to classify them with bears in the Ursidae family, raccoons in the Procyonidae family, or a family all to their own. More advanced DNA technology has removed any doubt that giant pandas are true bears. Consequently, they are now in the Ursidae family with other bears.

Red pandas share some common characteristics with giant pandas, but advanced DNA testing has placed them in the  Ailuridae family all by themselves. Genetically speaking, they hold more in common with raccoons and skunks than bears.

Biologists have decided that the traits that giant pandas and red pandas have in common have more to do with the fact that they both evolved in the same bamboo forest habitat than actual genetic relationship.

Are Bears Omnivores?

Yes, all bears, including giant pandas, eat both plant material and meat. At times black bears’ diets have been documented to consist of 96% plant material, making them one of the least predacious of carnivores.

Giant pandas eat even less meat than black bears. Their diet consists of almost 100% of bamboo. However, they have a similar digestive tract to other Ursidae family members and will eat meat if the opportunity presents itself.

How Heavy Are Bears?

• American Black Bears– Adults weigh 150 to 600 pounds”68 to 272 kg.”. Females are around 30% smaller than males. Their average size varies with geographic location with bears in the southeast being smaller than bears in the northwest. The very largest black bears weigh over 1,000 pounds.
• Brown Bears– Brown bear size also varies with geographic location. Brown bears from the interior of Alaska, Canada and the contiguous United States or grizzly bears are the smallest, so I’ll start with them first. Adult male grizzly bears weigh 400 to 800 pounds “181 to 263 kg.” while females weigh 300 to 500 pounds “137 to 227 kg”. The largest grizzly bears weigh well over 1000 pounds “454 kg “. Coastal brown bears are next in size to grizzly bears. They range in weight from 800 to 1200 pounds “363 to 544 kg. ” . Next in line are Kodiak brown bears. They are the largest of the North American Brown bears. Adult Kodiaks range in weight from 700 to 1300 pounds ” 316 to 590 kg. “. However, the very largest Kodiak brown bears weigh in excess of 1500 pounds ” 680 kg. “.
• Polar Bears– Adult males weigh in a range from 775 to 1,300 pounds “352 to 590 kg. “. However, some of them get much larger than that. Researchers in Canada estimated one male bear to weigh 1700 pounds. Female polar bears are about half the size of males.

How Tall Are Bears?

• Black Bears– Adults are around 3 feet “.92 m” tall at the shoulder and 5 to 7 feet “1.5 to 2.1 m ” tall when they’re standing on their hind legs.
• Brown Bears– Grizzly bears average around 40 inches “1.01 m” at the shoulder up to about 8 feet “2.4 m ” when they’re standing on their hind legs. A large male coastal brown bear can be 4.5 feet “1.37 m” at the shoulder and up to 9.8 feet “3 m “when they’re standing on their hind legs. last but not least, Kodiak brown bears can be up to 5 feet “1.5 m. ” tall at the shoulder and 10 feet “3.05 m. ” tall when they’re standing on their hind legs.
• Polar Bears– an adult male polar bear can be up to 5 feet “1.5 m. ” tall at the shoulder and 10 feet “3.05 m. ” tall when they’re standing on their hind legs.