Bears preparing for winter sleep

"Bear dropping“ photos Triin Ivandi
Text Bert Rähni, www.360.ee
Translation: Liis
 
 “Bear droppings“ with cranberries

For now the collection of winter fat stores is at its end for our brown bears. In November Estonian brown bears go into hibernation and a couple of weeks earlier the mobility and feeding of the bears decreases. The body needs to be prepared for the long sleep, the guts emptied.
 
"Bear droppings“ with lingonberries

In autumn feeding is on the principle that the more energy-rich and easier to obtain, the better. In Estonia carbohydrate-rich plant foods suit perfectly for growing the subcutaneous fat layer necessary for winter – berries, grain, apples. In a good hazelnut year focus may turn to hazels. Expressed in a more sophisticated way we can say that the brown bear is an opportunistic omnivore. Bear movements in autumn are also tied to feeding. If a good foraging ground is found the bear may be quite stationary for some time in autumn. Thus a female bear studied in West Virumaa in 2005 focussed mainly on an abandoned apple orchard. Human-produced foods are quite important to our ”king of the forest” in the autumn period. Grain is eaten in fields in early autumn and later in feeding grounds for wild boar. On passing the orchards of Alutaguse’s earlier farmsteads, trees scratched and broken by bears are common.
 
Major natural food sources are bilberries in early autumn and later lingonberries.
 
“Bear droppings“ with hazelnuts

Evidently the bears walking past the Alutaguse forest webcam have eaten themselves sufficiently plump on grain and apples, and so we end the transmission for the season. After waking up in spring the body again needs to start working, and it seems that our bears don’t immediately rush off to eat. The greater eating period comes at the end of April and in early May; we hope to follow the movements of bears in the Alutaguse forests once again  – until then a peaceful sleep!
 
“Bear droppings“ at an apple orchard

Autumn nature tours:
Making acquaintance with Estonian mammals, including bears, and the mass migration of birds on a week-long nature tour:


 

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