There are many animals you may want to avoid in the wilderness, including the ferocious grizzly bear! The general perception of grizzly bears is that they are large, frightening creatures that only consume meat. But this couldn’t be further from the truth. Instead, they are omnivores and consume a wide range of other foods in addition to meat.
These creatures are unique in that they use their long claws for both constructing their dens and hunting for food. Female grizzly bears can reach up to 800 pounds, but they often weigh around 700 pounds.
They frequently scavenge, hunting for food in home waste or plants, based on what is most practical. Due to their large appetites, they can even put on as much as six pounds in a single day. Given their enormous size, this is clear.
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Grass, broad-leaved plants, tubers, reeds, berries, and roots are the primary sources of food for grizzly bears. Fish, deer, moose, gophers, rodents, bison, and marmots are some more sources of food for grizzly bears. Because they are scavengers, it is common to see them consuming decaying animal remains.
Brown bears also consume domestic livestock, which is a significant financial hardship to farmers who raise animals for food. Sheep and cows are a couple of their preferred animals. A video circulating online shows just how intense the hunt can be when one grizzly bear sets his eyes on a lone caribou.
Going in For the Kill
A young Alaskan brown bear can be seen running in a prairie after a caribou. It isn’t long until the caribou makes an escape into a body of water. It may be a snowbank, but the video makes it hard to tell. Unfortunately for the caribou, bears can be incredible swimmers.
Without hesitation, the apex predator jumps in after the reindeer, another name for caribou, and pursues his target. It doesn’t take long for the bear to reach its prey and take it down. Grizzly bears can run at high speeds of 35 to 40 miles per hour, making them the fastest members of the Ursidae family.
Although they are unable to sustain this top speed for very long, they are incredibly effective predators because of their capacity to sprint quickly and sustain high speeds. A comment on the video has some good points. The viewer states:
“I cannot believe that you’ve got such amazing footage I have never seen anything so amazing. You deserve an award for catching this. I cannot believe how far the bear ran to catch it, just makes you think how amazing wildlife is, and after all these millions of years that’s how good the instinct has become.”
Take a look at the wild chase below!
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