About bears

The bear is a solitary animal, meaning that it lives alone. The exception is when the female has cubs, of course. Then she will live with her cubs for two or three years. This is quite a long time compared with other animals. Male bears live a more solitary life and largely meet other bears only in the breeding season.

The bear is an omnivore. This means that it eats both plants and meat. It eats a lot of ants and other insects. Herbs and grass are important in early summer, but blueberries are the main item on the menu in autumn! The bear is a predator, so it also eats other animals. It likes to eat any dead animals it finds, but is also quite capable of hunting for itself. Easy prey is preferred.

The bear is a forest animal. In Norway, it lives along the border with our neighbouring countries, Sweden, Finland and Russia. This is because the bear has returned here from those countries after we nearly drove the bears in Norway to extinction.

Today, we have about 150 bears in Norway. That is not very many compared with Sweden, which has around 2,500 bears. Actually, Norway used to have more bears than Sweden.

Among the four large carnivores, it is the bear that people say they would be most afraid of meeting. This is probably because bears are so big. It is quite difficult to meet a bear, as they prefer to stay away from people. If you should meet one all the same, you can quite simply talk to it so that it becomes aware of you. That will give the bear a chance to get away, as they are generally afraid of humans.

Most of us never get to see a bear, but it is not unusual to find traces of one. Learn how to recognise bear droppings and bear tracks.

During winter, the bear sleeps it's deep wintersleep in it's den, but what den does it choose? And how long exactly does the bear sleep in it's den?