Bear Information

BLACK BEARS	Link for More Info
	RANGE: northern Mexico through the USA to Canada. HABITAT: forests	SIZE: up to 190cm (75 inches) WEIGHT: up to 300kg (660 pounds) DIET: roots, berries, insects, honey, small mammals, fish
BROWN BEARS	Link for More Info
	RANGE: Europe, Asia, Japan and in North America from Yellowstone National Park to Alaska including northwest Canada HABITAT: tundra, forests, subalpine mountainous areas	SIZE: up to 260cm (105 inches) WEIGHT: up to 465kg (1020 pounds) DIET: grasses, sedges, bulbs, roots, berries, insects, rodents, carrion, fish, occasional large animals
SUN BEARS	Link for More Info
	RANGE: Southeast Asia including Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Bangladesh, Malaysia, China, Iran and Afghanistan HABITAT: lowland tropical rain forests	SIZE: up to 150cm (60 inches) WEIGHT: up to 65kg (145 pounds) DIET: fruits, vegetables, insects, honey, birds, palm trees, termites, small mammals
SPECTACLED BEARS	Link for More Info
	RANGE: Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia HABITAT: forests, steppes, coastal desert	SIZE: up to 180cm (72 inches) WEIGHT: up to 155kg (340 pounds) DIET: fruit, grasses, bulbs, insects, rodents, rabbits, birds, berries
POLAR BEARS	Link for More Info
	RANGE: Arctic ice flows and shorelines HABITAT: ice adjacent to shorelines in the arctic	SIZE: up to 260cm (105 inches) WEIGHT: up to 600kg (1320 pounds) DIET: seals, carrion, walrus, beluga whales, narwhals, seabirds, small animals, vegetation, kelp
ASIATIC BLACK BEARS	Link for More Info
	RANGE: Eastern Asia including southeast Russia, Japan, China, Pakistan, North India, Nepal, Bhutan, Burma, Taiwan. HABITAT: forests in hilly or mountainous areas	SIZE: up to 190cm (75 inches) WEIGHT: up to 200kg (440 pounds) DIET: nuts, bamboo, fruits, grasses, insects, carrion, bees nests, invertebrates, small vertrebrates
SLOTH BEARS	Link for More Info
	RANGE: India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal HABITAT: forests and grasslands	SIZE: up to 190cm (75 inches) WEIGHT: up to 140kg (310 pounds) DIET: ants, termites, bees, fruits, eggs, vegetation
PANDAS	Link for More Info
	RANGE: China HABITAT: mountain forests where bamboo is plentiful	SIZE: up to 190cm (76 inches) WEIGHT: up to 110kg (242 pounds) DIET: almost entirely bamboo, some wild plants and some carrion

These are five sites where you can see bears in captivity.

The Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center	Link for More Info
	The Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center is in West Yellowstone Montana and offers up close viewing of one Kodiak brown bear weighing over 800 pounds and 7 smaller grizzly bears. In addition you can see 7 wolves.This facility provides a much better look at how bears behave than you would see at a zoo. There concept is to try and make the experience for the bear as close as they can to what it would be in the wild. We watched bears flip rocks over looking for food and play with each other.
The West Coast Game Safari	Link for More Info
	The West Coast Game Safari is just south of Bandon Oregon. This facility breeds numerous animals and provides the visitor with the chance to interact with baby animals. We have held a bear and a lynx and petted a lion, a tiger and snow leopards. Bears are born around February 1 and can be held roughly eight weeks later, when they are equivalent to holding a newborn infant. As they get bigger they get to be more active and cannot be held anymore.
Yellowstone Bear World	Link for More Info
	Yellowstone Bear World is in Rexburg Idaho. They have numerous black bears that you can drive close to and one brown bear who is behind an electrified fence. While we were there they also had two cubs in a separate area that were a bundle of energy and fun to watch.
Wildlife Safari	Link for More Info
	The Wildlife Safari is in Winston Oregon about six miles south of Roseburg just off Interstate 5. You drive through the animals including zebras, giraffes and others. There is a seperate area for brown bears. We drove through this area twice . The first time the bears were laying around doing nothing. The second time two of the bears got up and proceeded to a small pond, where we had fun watching these two bears play.
Chengdu Panda Breeding and Research Center
	The Chengdu Panda Research and Breeding Center is in Chengdu in the Sichuan Province of China. We were able to see four pandas that were two months or less in age as well as seven one year old pandas. One highlight of our China trip was holding a one year old panda.
The San Diego Zoo	Link for More Info
	The San Diego Zoo is in San Diego California. They have pandas, polar bears, spectacled bears and brown bears. Pictured is a polar bear swimming under water in the polar bear plunge. td>

Here are a number of web sites to get information on real bears.

Bear Trust International web page
North American Bear Center web page
Bears org web page
Ursus International Conservation Instutute web page
Bear Den web page

Julie Chapman

Link for More Info

Julie used to work at Agilent Technolgies in Santa Rosa CA. She does absolutely fantastic work and has moved to Montana to be closer to the animals that she paints. She and her husband take trips to such amazing places as Denali, Kodiak Island and Yellowstone and photograph and paint the animals that they see. Julie has won many awards. Click on her website to check out her award winning bears, moose and other animals. One of her works Illumination is pictured to the left. Photo is courtesy of Julie Chapman.