Bear world increases
Photo: Arne Ader
Translation: Liis
By sleigh on forest road
Brownbear Pruunkaru Ursus arctos
It is a very important period in the life of brown bears. Females may become mothers from 3 or 4 years old. This year more than 60 bear mothers in the Estonian forests have given birth, or will give birth to additions to the family in February. Around the winter dens the silence of forest and snow now reigns.
New-born bear cubs are blind, ear openings are covered with a membrane, body covered with a sparse ”toy bear fur”.. With a birth weight of around half a kilo they are rather helpless to start with, but develop rapidly with the valuable and nourishing milk of the mother – the fat percentage of bear milk is 30! Female bears giving birth for the first time mostly have one to two cubs, older have two to three, very rarely more. The next progeny will be born to the female bear only after two, sometimes even three years.
At an age of a couple of weeks the ears open, but the cubs become sighted only at an age of a month. When milk teeth are in the mouth three months have passed, and spring has advanced so far that mother bear judges it proper to leave the birth nest. By that time the bear cubs, weighing up to 5 kilos, must be able to follow their mother.
This autumn dragged out for a long time and in December some bears still left tracks in the forest– they must have been male bears, pregnant females go to sleep at the ”right time” – the energy reserves gathered in autumn must not be wasted on straying around.
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