Bear Facts 10

 Adult bears sometimes kill bear cubs.

Bears may target cubs to force a mating ritual, since killing a mother bear’s cubs actually forces her to ovulate. Definitely one of the more disturbing bear facts.

Bears can live for a long time.

On average, bears live for up to 25 years. Although this is short compared to a human’s 80 years, the bear’s life span is quite long compared to other mammals. Bears gain the ability to reproduce between the ages of 3 and 6, and sometimes don’t stop growing until they reach the age of 11.

Bears have no real natural predators.

Vulnerable bear cubs usually get preyed upon by big cats and other predators. However, adult bears don’t usually face any other threat in nature aside from other bears.Only the rise of humanity posed a real threat to them, with hunters and poachers killing bears for trade or meat.

Bears suffer from a variety of parasitic infections.

Bears may be tough predators, but they’re still vulnerable to protists and worms in their organs. Externally, they also suffer from infestations of ticks, lice, and, fleas. Polar bears are less vulnerable to parasites because of their environment but still suffer from internal parasites.

Bears also suffer from some canine diseases.

Bears are prone to the Morbillivirus that causes distemper in dogs. They also suffer from infectious canine hepatitis, especially for black bears living in the wild.

Brown bears are the second biggest bear species.

More known as grizzly bears, they live across the forests and woods of Eurasia and North America. Currently, an estimated 200,000 brown bears remain in the wild.

A brown bear’s color depends on the place where it lives.

In India, for example, brown bears have a reddish tint to their fur, lined with silver tips. Chinese brown bears have a distinctive collar around their necks, spreading down their chests and over their shoulders. The collar itself varies from yellow-brown to white.

Meanwhile, North American brown bears have fur that shifts from dark brown on the lower parts of their bodies to cream or yellow-brown on the upper part.

Brown bears use tools.

You probably won’t see a bear with a Dremel anytime soon, but bears have surprisingly been observed using rocks as tools. Brown bears in particular use a rough rocks to scratch itself with. This alone places bears among the smartest mammals alive today.