Just to whet your appetite for what you’ll see on the live BearCam in Alaska (it’s already up and running this a.m., and the bears are out in the water), here’s a short video from BBC one with David Attenborough narrating: it shows grizzly bears (the same species you’ll see on BearCam) having a feast on salmon attempting to swim upstream to spawn.
I find the BearCam mesmerizing and especially good at lulling me to sleep.
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You say ‘different species’ but aren’t grizzly bears just inland brown bears?
Yeah, what a stupid mistake on my part. I was thinking of black bears! I’ve fixed it now, thanks.
c.c.
This misconception is SO pervasive and personally annoying !
LISTEN – ALL brown bears of mainland North America ARE GRIZZLIES, Ursus arctos horribilis. That is coastal, upland, lowland, inland, barren ground…ALL of them ! To stamp this point out and firmly make the point of fact – EVERY brown bear in North America EXCEPT the kodiak archipelago is a grizzly !
yukon inland bears – grizzly
alaskan peninsula bears – grizzly
coastal alaskan bears – grizzly
katmai national park – grizzly
yellowstone national park – grizzly
The only other brown bear subspecies in North America is the kodiak, Ursus arctos middendorffi. It resides on the aforementioned kodiak archipelago (exclusively so).
For those wanting to learn more, I can invite you to read my recent answer (today, actually) on an online Q&A forum that I regularly use. There, I give more detail on what has given rise to this massive misconception of what brown bears live in North America.
I’m a zoology PhD with specific ursid knowledge.
Bilby is correct, grizzlies and browns are the same species.
According to that wiki thing, a grizzly is one of several subspecies of brown bear. What exactly is a subspecies? I assume interbreeding is possible, but I also presume lions and tigers are not mutual subspecies, and neither are humans and neanderthals. Hmmm.. is this a thorny subject by any chance?
I too called up the google machine and was reading the wiki last night. Extremely fascinating to learn about the size differences of the same species, depending on location they are found in.
According to wiki:
“There are several recognized subspecies within the brown bear species. In North America, two types are generally recognized, the coastal brown bear and the inland grizzly bear, and the two types could broadly define all brown bear subspecies. An adult grizzly living inland in Yukon may weigh as little as 80 kg (180 lb), while an adult brown bear in nearby coastal Alaska living on a steady, nutritious diet of spawning salmon may weigh as much as 680 kg (1,500 lb).”
Also sad to learn that the official state animal of California is the now extinct subspecies, the California Golden Bear. The last one was shot in 1922.
Question to those more knowledgeable about bears than I:
Are members of the brown bear species all various shades of brown? I know with black bears, they can be anything from black to cinnamon-colored. I was curious if that also applies to brown bears.
As an aside, I think somebody needs to come up with something that will allow David Attenborough live forever.
At the river mouth…
Test
Ok Jerry, I seem to be able to post again. I had to remove my website adress. No biggy…
Subspecies designations are used a lot by people who do tetrapod taxonomy. North American ichthyologists don’t use subspecies much. Proper recognition and description of subspecies is more involved and difficult than recognition and description of a new species. Subspecies are geographic entities with usually fairly narrow zones of interbreeding and introgression. So one needs fairly extensive collections from throughout the species range.
Enst Mayer had some equations to use to determine if interpopulation differences are enough to justify description of subspecies. I no longer have them at hand. Maybe someone could post them.
One argument against subspecies is that they are determined based on patterns of variation in some characters. This could obscure patterns of variation in other characters which may be different.
Species are easier. Species are sometimes described based on a single specimen. I have described several species based on single collections. There is some truth to the statement that a species is what a competent taxonomist says it is. Probably better stated that a competent taxonomist is often correct in recognizing species.