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June

2:05

30th. So we get on that terms and conditions apply, Oh,

2:10

Hey, it's your internet friend who calls herself your dad, who said that this second bear's episode was going to come out as a midweek bonus episode, just for funsies and then started putting it together.

2:21

And it's like 37,000 clips from six different additional or sinologist.

2:24

And I was like, what's what's even in my skull.

2:27

Is it just a cauliflower because no, that's not possible.

2:30

So it's coming out as a part to Allie ward back with another episode of ologies about bears fucking hell yet bears man.

2:41

Part two of bears.

2:44

So in episode, one of our Synology we asked or sinologist Chris Morgan, what bear conventions are like, and in this earth, Synology part two.

2:53

You can kind of pretend that you're hanging out around a campfire with a half a dozen human beings who have dedicated their lives to helping and understanding bears.

3:02

How lucky are we? Except for me, who did not know how to put this many interviews together and who almost started crying in a hotel room this week going, what was I thinking?

3:11

But it's so fun and it turned out great.

3:14

Also it's divided into chapters on getting it to that in a second, but first thank you to everyone on Patrion at patrion.com/apologies for all of these questions that we just continue every week to lob at experts and to everyone who reviews and rates ologies because I read every single one of them.

3:31

When I feel like I have made a terrible decision to make a clip show.

3:35

And you remind me to keep going such as K Jackson, Oh five to nine, who says a friend played the scorpion episode on a backpacking trip and I'm hooked.

3:42

I went to school for fluvial geomorphology and we are a fun bunch.

3:46

Just Google parachuting, beavers.

3:48

You're welcome. K Jackson, Oh five to nine.

3:51

I did Google parachuting beavers.

3:53

I am curious, I do need to hear more about how people toss beavers at a plates for science, but bears before beavers.

4:00

Let's get into it. Okay. Get ready to meet Six

4:10

more bare experts. First West Larson.

4:13

My pronouns are he him Larson,

4:15

a world renowned earth. Sinologist who has been studying these creatures since 2011.

4:19

You may have seen him in a national geographic CNN out to zero or on Instagram at Griz kid where he dazzles 126,000 wildlife loving followers with pictures of bears.

4:31

You'll also meet my name is Danielle

4:33

revet and my pronouns are she and her Daniel

4:37

revet who studied zoology for her.

4:39

Bachelor's researched bear diets for her masters and is now a PhD candidate at the university of Saskatchewan monitoring polar bear movement.

4:48

Also joining us is my pronouns.

4:51

Are he him celebrated wildlife photographer to Salani Lasseter who also partnered with Nat geo to photograph carnival ecologists, Dr.

4:59

Rowan grant, as she ducted to bear dens and took data and cuddled Cubs.

5:03

And I have been following Salani on Instagram for a while.

5:07

And if there is someone who can tell you the best way to observe a bear, it's this guy, other people I begged to record voice notes into their phone, include My

5:17

pronouns. Are she Her

5:18

doctor, Tia Beck chuffed who studied polar bears for 15 years, taking her all over the Arctic in places like Greenland and Russia.

5:26

She's also the author of the popular Facebook page, polar bear questions.

5:30

So, yes, she's going to answer yours.

5:32

My friends as Drew Hamilton, my pronouns are he and him drew him Hamilton

5:36

and Alaskan born bear spotting guide and wildlife photographer, who has spent 20 years looking at bears.

5:41

He's now based in Alaska and is such a joy.

5:44

When it comes to chatting about these important animals.

5:47

He also takes incredible pictures.

5:48

And lastly, My name is Lana turn yellow, the absolutely Wonderful

5:53

Dr. Lana, John yellow, a wildlife consultant or, and ardent conservationist who studied a human bear interactions for her.

6:01

Master's at the university of Calgary and bear habitat selection, and bear habitats selection for her PhD at the university of Alberta.

6:09

She is amazing and such a champion for the bears.

6:12

What a group y'all had so many questions that Chris Morgan and I just did not have time to answer.

6:16

So I sent them off to these great bear folks who recorded them and sent them back and we sliced and diced and put them into chapters for you starting with chapter one Paris on film, to get some reactions from urbanologist to bears in the media.

6:32

Now there's a total of five chapters in this episode, addressing everything from bear locomotion to mating habits, polar bear for conservation tactics, itchy butts, pointy bits, campsite protocol, bear bells, singing to bears, singing at bears and whether or not we should all move to Antarctica with all the world's bears for one big slumber party.

6:55

So let's dive in with chapter one bears on film

7:21

listeners. My name is West Larson.

7:22

My pronouns are he him?

7:24

And so far in my career, I've worked with polar bears, black bears and slopped bears mostly.

7:31

Okay. So figure I'll get into these questions.

7:33

Chris brewer asked bears beets or Battlestar Galactica, and Kate stomps said this question right here.

7:40

So we got an office fan out there, obviously beats, you know, I can take them or leave them.

7:47

Battlestar Galactica, never got too into it.

7:50

I watched a little bit. So I'm definitely going to go with bears.

7:53

K Ainslie Boren asked, remember that documentary called grizzly man.

7:57

He was on Kodiak Island where the subspecies Kodiak Brown bear lives did the bears really get used to his presence and not attack?

8:04

Yeah, I do remember that documentary actually got to speak with the director of that documentary Werner Herzog, and yeah, it's really great.

8:13

They did a great job on that. He actually was in which is close to Kodiak.

8:17

It's right across the water from Kodiak.

8:19

And as far as whether or not the bears really got used to his presence, they did habituate to his presence.

8:25

They started just kind of accept him.

8:27

Those bears are really well fed.

8:29

They have lots of salmon streams.

8:31

They have really good food sources, so they're not very territorial.

8:34

They're not very aggressive.

8:36

Those are the kinds of bears that someone can be in close kind of proximity to them like that.

8:41

You couldn't do that with an interior grizzly bear, but with those big coastal Brown bears, you can.

8:47

But I mean, after a while, one of them ended up deciding to kill a neat him.

8:52

So after a while, you're going to come across a that maybe decides Your

8:56

meal or doesn't like you or whatever.

8:57

It's just a matter of time.

8:58

I wasn't sure if I was going to leave this story in because it's so sad and tragic and his methods of bear interaction were certainly controversial.

9:06

But so many of you asked about earth sinologist feelings that I wanted to hear straight from at least one on it.

9:13

So my heart goes out to anyone who has been affected by any perilous bear encounter.

9:18

We'll talk more about how to keep you and the bears both safe in the episode, but first let's meet Danielle and gossip about the dogs.

9:28

Hi there. My name is Danielle revet and my pronouns are she and her.

9:32

I currently work with polar bears in the Western Hudson Bay area, specifically near Churchill and in walked us national park and Manitoba Canada for my current PhD project at the university uses katchewan, but I've also worked with North American Brown bears, more commonly known as grizzly bears while I was doing my master's degree at Washington state university, it looks like hope has a very important question.

9:56

And that is, did you vote in fat bear week?

10:00

And if so, which bear was your favorite?

10:03

Did seven 47 deserves the victory?

10:06

Well, I always participate in fat bear week, but for people who don't know fat bear week is kind of like a March madness competition for bears that feed on the salmon at Brooks falls.

10:22

And it is so much fun to pay attention to you and follow this particular competition.

10:28

It happens every year. I think for the last seven years originally organized, I believe by Mike Fitz, who was a ranger at Katmai for awhile.

10:37

And basically what it is is they take pictures of the bears at the beginning of the season, after everybody has just come out of hibernation.

10:44

And then they take pictures again at the end of the season, when bears have been feeding on the salmon and they've really been packing on those pounds and they just look like big bear balloons.

10:55

And it is the funniest thing in the world.

10:58

These bears are so fat.

11:00

I have never seen fatter bears.

11:02

It's unreal.

11:04

I guess I've seen some fat bears like as Jews, but this just really blows them out of the water.

11:09

It's insane how fat these bears are, but yes, I participate in fat bear week.

11:16

It's on Twitter and on Facebook you vote, I believe by going on Facebook and liking a particular photos that are set up in the brackets, depending on who you think is the fattest bear in that particular bracket.

11:29

And then the one with the most votes advances to the next round.

11:34

And this past year for 2027 47 was the winner.

11:39

I don't know that seven 47 is my favorite bear for fat bear week.

11:45

I'm a pretty big fan of Holly, but Holly got knocked out pretty early after I believe the second round for her, she got knocked out by chunk and then chunk was ultimately the bear that went up against seven 47 at the end of the competition, whether seven 47 deserve that victory or not.

12:03

It's very debatable. I mean, we all have our favorites, right?

12:07

I wouldn't have voted for him, but he's a big bear.

12:11

I believe the Rangers said that last last year.

12:16

So 2019, they estimated his weight at 1400 pounds and that they thought he was bigger this past year.

12:26

So bigger than 1400 pounds in 2020.

12:29

That is a massive Brown bear.

12:32

And it's so cool because these bears can only get that fat by being on that salmon stream right there.

12:40

So it's a really cool ecosystem, super fun and exciting a competition to participate in just one of the cooler things that you can do on social media.

12:49

And you can get on those webcams, I believe on explore.org and see a lot of the same barriers that are there at Brooks falls, eating salmon, sitting in the water and kind of all just hanging out together, looking for fish and waiting for their bellies to be full and for them to be super fat and ready to go into hibernation Patron.

13:10

Jane N S asked this next one, can you watch that Revenant scene without wanting to stay inside forever?

13:16

Is that a realistic bear attack?

13:18

I know attacks are very rare, but damn, that was really something else to watch and to answer it is the wonderful to Salani who you should all follow on Instagram immediately.

13:27

Just pull it up right now.

13:28

Salani T S a L a N I, My

13:33

pronouns are he him and I work with black and grizzly bears in the Western United States.

13:39

The Revenant scene, a very realistic bear scene, just given, given what we know about bear attacks, given how we've seen bears attack their prey or what they do in fights.

13:53

I think that that's a very realistic attack when the character shot the bear with the rifle, the bear got more aggressive, you know, it takes a, a pretty big rifle, a pretty big shot to take down a bear.

14:06

And if you're not going to hit it just right, all you're going to do is piss off the bear.

14:10

And it's going to do more to try to take you out the way he shook them side to side Grizzlies.

14:16

Definitely do that. We've seen that in the wild where they jump up and down on you to, to crush you or, or break into things.

14:24

I think that was a very, a very nice and very scary, but very nice.

14:30

I really did appreciate it.

14:32

And I think that scene actually did some good for bears.

14:35

I think, I think, you know, we're, we'll rely less in Hollywood on, you know, real bears that people are training or people are using for Hollywood.

14:45

And it shows that you can actually get a very realistic bear in like a CGI.

14:52

So I really appreciated that scene.

14:54

I just want to stress. One thing is very important that you educate yourself and your bear aware if you live in a place with bears, or if you're visiting a place with bears, the more knowledgeable you are, the more confident you'll be in bear territory, unless you have to fear as a conservationist.

15:09

I want to turn people's fear of bears into respect for bears, respect their capabilities, respect the nature and respect the role that bears play in our ecosystem.

15:19

This next question is from Francesca or TC first-time question asker.

15:24

If all general bear species fought, which one would win and why this is a pretty easy one in general, polar bear is the largest bear species standing at like 10 feet tall Grizzlies.

15:38

The big Kodiak Grizzlies and Alaska would stand probably eight or nine feet.

15:43

They don't meet too much, but I guess if, if they were to fight, if you had a big grizzly and a smaller polar bear, maybe they grizzly would win.

15:51

But in general, I think the polar bear, this is, this is a pretty easy one.

15:56

Nothing's going to touch a polar bear.

15:58

They've got larger paws.

16:00

They've got sharper teeth.

16:01

I don't think grizzly is going to be able to take one.

16:05

Okay. But what if there was species on species action that was not fighting?

16:10

So we have an expert for that.

16:13

My name is Tia. Bechshoft my pronouns.

16:15

Are she her?

16:17

And I work with polar bears.

16:19

Let's dive into some polar bear questions from Anna, do Wigger or grizzly bear slash polo, bear hybrids, real.

16:27

And if so, is this because of climate change?

16:30

Well, yes and no.

16:32

So hybrids have always existed to some extent, but now we're seeing that polar bears in some areas are spending more time on the shore because the sea ice is missing for longer periods of time.

16:45

And we're also seeing that the Grizzlies or the Brown bears are moving further North simply because they can find food for a longer period of time over the year.

16:54

And so we do see more interactions between the two species and sometimes those interactions end up with a meeting and with Cubs hybrid cups, Stephanie broaches asked, is it a pissy or a growler?

17:08

So, I mean, really that's up to you, whichever word you like better piss Leo growler, but unofficially it's a Groll up air if the sire, so that it's, if the father is a grizzly bear or Brown bear, and it's a pistol Liebherr if the father is a polar bear.

17:32

So I would say that the hybrids that we know off, they are usually a grow love bears because it's usually a polar bear female, and then a Brown bear meal.

17:44

I really apologize if I'm missing these names up royally, but yeah, they hope it works.

17:51

Oh, you're doing great. We love you. Now, if this were this American life episode, I would come in either glassy like and say today on our radio program, we've arrived at act two, act two fuzzy Waze.

18:03

Let's get for real.

18:04

You remember to slump, Weird

18:07

bear fact, black bears are not all black.

18:11

Most people don't understand this, but they come in various colors, black, Brown, golden blonde, there's even a blue-ish tinted black bear.

18:22

There's even a, a whitish bear called the spirit bear, which is like shiny white.

18:26

You can find that up in Canada and British Columbia.

18:29

So I guess that's kind of a weird bare fact.

18:32

And most people have no idea that a black bears aren't always black.

18:38

Also here with us is drew Hamilton and Alaskan guide and bear spotter, who himself has a russet kind of fishermen, wilderness beard that appears to get glimmering, IC crystals on it in the field.

18:53

Mr. Hamilton, my pronouns are he and him and I work with Brown bears and Alaska and polar bears in Canada.

18:59

So before I get into it, I think I need to make the distinction for what is a Brown bear here in Alaska.

19:07

It's a geographic designation.

19:09

So if you boil a Brown bear, a grizzly bear and a Kodiak bear all down to their scientific name, it's Ursus Artis and it breaks down geographically.

19:20

A bear that's found on the coast and has access to salmon is called a Brown bear.

19:26

If that bear is found up in the interior of Alaska, say around Denali national park, doesn't have access to salmon.

19:33

It's called a grizzly bear. And if that bears on Kodiak Island, well, that's a Kodiak bear.

19:39

Rebecca swear, it asks blue polar bears.

19:42

Is that a thing?

19:43

So sometimes pull beers can be green, but I've never heard of blue polar bears.

19:51

So polar bears that are kept in captivity in, you know, more humid parts of the world.

19:56

They can actually get like a green tinge to them, which is a result of algae growing inside of their hair.

20:04

And yeah, it looks kind of strange, but usually it can be relatively easily cured by soaking the bears repeatedly in salt water, because this kills the algae.

20:15

I mean, you could consider polar bears blue partially, but that would be their tongue.

20:24

Sometimes if you see a polar bear tongue, it kind of looks bluish.

20:28

Polar bears were born with a pink tongue, which after a couple of months starts to become modeled with black and the tongue of adult polar bears and varies in color.

20:39

Some animals still have a lot of pink showing.

20:41

Some are nearly all or totally black, and some have this of pink and black that can actually look bluish the roof of a polar bears mouth and its insight.

20:52

Cheeks are also dark in colors.

20:54

And sometimes you will see pictures of adult polar bears with very blue or even pink tongues and cheeks.

21:02

And these are rugs and the inside of the mouth is made the plastic.

21:07

So not really a real polar mouth or tongue, as far as I know, there is no specific ecological reason for polar bear tongues to be modeled.

21:18

This dark color that they often are.

21:21

And my best guess is that in maybe genetically linked to polar bear skin color, which also goes from being pink to being black over the course of a few months at the same time that the tongue color is changing it Louisa fro said, I read about the fact that polar bear hair are not white, but transparent, and that their skin is black.

21:43

And I freaked out thinking about it.

21:45

It's like bears are covered with those fiber optic filaments.

21:48

Why is it better to have transparent than white hair?

21:52

I'm actually transparent and white hair, or basically the same thing because the color of your hair is determined by how much pigment is in there, how much melanin is in your hair.

22:05

And so the more melanin you have, the more pigment you have in your hair, the darker your hair is now gray hair.

22:11

Our hair turns gray because we have a gradual loss of this pigment.

22:16

And so once the hair is completely white it's because there simply is no more pigment in it.

22:22

So if your hair is completely white, it's basically the same as polar bear hair.

22:27

So white hair, transparent hair, same, same.

22:30

One of the very persistent myths about polar bear hair is that they're completely hollow, which is not entirely the case.

22:38

So polar bears have two types of hair.

22:40

There's the guard hair, the longer ones on top.

22:44

And then there are the woolen hairs underneath other more curly and softer and really good at holding in the heat.

22:51

And both of these types of hair are transparent.

22:54

So they're without pigment and they're mostly hollow, but they have this air filled core where it's multiple chambers one after the other, down through the hair strand.

23:07

And it's because of these properties that polar bear hair scatter and reflect all visible lengths of light.

23:13

And that makes them appear white to the human eye.

23:16

Now, with regard to the skin pull of HERSA, actually born with pink skin, but after a couple of months, while they're in the den with their mom, the Cubs skin turns permanently black, and you can see this on the bear's nose, on its lips and under the footpaths.

23:32

And there are quite a few theories that have been suggested over the years as to why this is, but the prevailing one is that the skin is black in order to absorb a maximum of heat from the sun, but also to aid in protecting the animal against UV radiation, because generally speaking, darker skin or rather a higher levels of the pigment melanin in the skin have been found to provide better protection against the sun's UV rays.

24:02

And this just goes for wide range of organisms from humans to blue whales.

24:07

So whichever is true.

24:10

No albino bears have been reported to date, which could indicate the importance of having black skin in this species.

24:16

Katherine's girlfriend wants to know what polo bears smell like.

24:21

I actually wondered the same myself for years.

24:25

And so the first time I was close to sedated, polar bear, I buried my face in it's for a, to take a good whiff.

24:33

And I can tell you that, unlike a, for example, dogs and cats and horses and sheep, and the smell of polar bear is incredibly subtle.

24:44

If I were to compare it to anything, I think it would be, imagine you've been going for a long walk along the ocean side on a really windy day.

24:55

So the smell of your clean nun, perfumed windblown hair, when you come back inside is kind of the closest I can come to what it smelled like.

25:07

There are a number of reasons why polar bears don't have a very strong smell.

25:12

First of all, most polar bears spend their entire lives on the sea ice, which is a very neutral smelling environment with water and ice and snow.

25:21

But also, and this is actually quite important.

25:24

Pull up here, don't have territories to defend like most other carnivores do.

25:30

And so polar bears don't meet this, this strong scent to Mark their particular area.

25:37

And also all of this being said, I am sure that a wet polo bear will likely have a slightly more noticeable smell than a dry bear and a polar bear that's in the middle of eating.

25:49

A seal will smell strongly of the prey.

25:52

So off the seals, fat and blood, also a barrier that is forced to spend it summer on land instead of on the sea ice.

26:00

And it may smell somewhat of wet peat, berries, fermented algae.

26:06

I also imagine that a polar bear with upset stomach or an adult female who has spent the past three months in the den with her newborn Cubs may well have a somewhat stronger smell.

26:20

We've arrived at chapter three, bear hay here.

26:23

How do bears bear to other bears y'all cared and asked a lot of questions and we have answers.

26:28

Well, one incredible are sinologist with over 25 years of experience by the name of Dr.

26:34

Lana Chinelo does my name is Lana turn yellow.

26:37

And I primarily am working right now with grizzly bears, but I also work with black bears.

26:42

I am also The co-chair of the international union for the conservation of natures, bear specialist groups, human bear, conflict expert team.

26:51

And in that role, I work with seven of the eight bear species worldwide.

26:56

So all species except polar bears because they have their own expert team.

27:01

So Tammy asked, have we been able to recognize or identify a language in bears?

27:08

So the answer to that question is absolutely bears have a language bear language is more spoken with their body and their movements.

27:17

So how they face each other, whether they look each other straight in the eyes, whether they have their head down or their head up, all of those are how bears are talking to each other.

27:31

So these subtle movements in their body language bears also can vocalize.

27:37

So they will tell you they will clock their jaws and they will tell you things like back off, stay away, get away from me.

27:46

So not only do they have their body movement language, they can vocalize as well.

27:51

Although that is a bit less common, they often speak to each other with their body Does

27:58

West Larson, AKA grays, kid speak bear.

28:00

He confirmed that their vocalizations can speak volumes.

28:05

We use a lot of different vocalizations for communication between themselves, between other species.

28:10

If you, for example, come upon a black bear in the woods and it's not happy with you.

28:15

It's gonna make like a noise or it's going to clock its jaws at you.

28:20

So they definitely vocalize a lot.

28:23

Lana also chimes in about some very on-brand bear Havier.

28:27

So Avery asks, we all know that they're the cutest when they're it's in their backs on trees, but the question remains, why are they so itchy?

28:34

Ah, Avery, interesting.

28:36

You should ask that this is exactly what I am working on right at this moment is them scratching their backs on trees.

28:44

So bears do this for a number of reasons, and we believe it is a method of communication between bears sometimes on their way to the tree.

28:54

You'll see them take their, footpads, put them in a depression.

28:58

And then w it's kind of called cowboying.

29:00

They move them around.

29:01

Why did they do that? Well, they have scent glands.

29:04

They have scent glands in their feet, and that releases the scent into those marks.

29:09

Then they will Mark all the way up to the tree, the Mark tree.

29:12

And they will either smell up and down that tree or investigate it smelling.

29:18

Who's been there. What they've been doing, then sometimes they will stand up or even stay quadrupedal on, on all four feet and they will it's their shoulder, or they will itch their back on that tree.

29:29

Again, releasing the sense from the glands.

29:33

Now, other bears can use that.

29:35

It's a method of communication between them.

29:37

So a female may come up, she might have really young Cubs and she can go up to that tree and she will smell up and down and she may make a decision.

29:45

Hmm. A big adult male just rubbed on that tree.

29:48

That big adult male has a possibility of killing these little Cubs.

29:52

I have. I'm not going to go that way and she'll turn around and go another way.

29:56

A paper just came out that talked about it being a dating calling card.

30:00

So those who are itching on those trees, more scratching the back more, maybe getting mates from that.

30:07

So basically it's a method of communication between bears, but yes, you're right, Avery.

30:13

It also feels good and gets rid of some of the hair and some of that itch.

30:17

Oh, we have another question on Mark trees and it says, do all bears do the itchy for dance that we see in those?

30:27

Gipps the answer to that is yes, indeed all bears do.

30:32

So. Some bears may Mark more than others.

30:35

And that can be based on if it's the breeding season.

30:38

If they're these big, large adult males, they may be doing more marking, but absolutely all bears Mark trees.

30:45

I have literally thousands of videos of it going right from our newborn Cubs of the year they're called or those, those bears that have not yet reached their first birthday marking trees all the way up to 1,500 pound males, marking trees, all bears, Mark trees, and they're talking to each other pretty much as they do.

31:08

So they're leaving their calling card.

31:10

Bearded bear dude, true echoes that just like me dancing after a few white wines at a wedding bears can also use their body as an industry.

31:19

They've got impressively complex communication.

31:22

It's mostly done through body posturing, body positioning.

31:28

There's some vocalizations involved, but really it's very subtle body postures that can tell you exactly.

31:35

What's on a bear's mind.

31:37

Bella Trezza asked, I heard somewhere that bears grieve for their loved ones.

31:41

Is this true? And what are the social structures of bear communities bears do have emotions.

31:46

They're probably not as complex as human emotions.

31:50

I don't know that I'd be willing to say that bears specifically grieve, but they definitely feel lost.

31:59

They definitely feel attachment.

32:00

So if you were to boil the different things that make grief bears can feel those maybe independently, but I wouldn't necessarily assign this specific human emotion of grief to something bears do.

32:14

And as to what are the social structures of bear communities, that is an incredibly complex answer.

32:20

So it kind of depends on the bears and where they're located on the coast of the Alaska peninsula and Katmai national park McNeil river state game sanctuary.

32:30

You have incredibly high densities of bears and those bears are forced to interact with each other frequently.

32:36

And so they have actually developed complex social structures that are based on a rank and hierarchy system.

32:44

And people tend to think that that's based on how big a barrier is, but it's really based on their attitude.

32:51

So the alpha bear, the most dominant bear in an area isn't necessarily the biggest bear in the area.

32:57

It's the bear that has the attitude to keep all the other bears in check.

33:03

Now, the family groups will tend to stick together for some two and a half, three and a half, four and a half years.

33:11

The Cubs will stay with mom and the independent bears, the kind of teenage males and females that are independent will sometimes pal around together for a number of years, particularly if they're siblings and grew up with mom together, they'll after they leave mom, they'll still stick around.

33:28

And then you've got this demographic of large male older bears that are, are fairly independent, but there are a few places where these bears come together to feed you.

33:39

Think of the most famous being Brooks falls and Katmai national park or McNeil falls in McNeil river state game sanctuary.

33:46

And you get to see these amazing interactions between bears.

33:52

I always say that one day at McNeil river is like a lifetime of studying bears because you can see 40, 50, 60, 70 bears at one time.

34:01

Most bears I've seen in one stretch of river at McNeil was 78 and a quarter mile stretch of river.

34:07

And so just sitting there, you see all these different behaviors and all these different social interactions, just kind of stacked one on top of one another.

34:15

And so you'll, you'll learn, Okay.

34:19

Aside from Bera Palooza, what are smaller group dynamics like do bears ever have stepdads?

34:25

Do they ever call home and see how their mom is doing?

34:28

Lana has details.

34:31

Tammy also asked to bear family stay together or nearby one another as adults.

34:36

So that's an interesting question.

34:39

Okay. For bears, the father has no investment in the offspring, so he doesn't stay around at all.

34:47

But for the mother, absolutely.

34:49

She raises her young and then it all depends.

34:53

If those young are male or female, if you're a female, you are allowed to have part of your mother's home range.

34:59

So when we look at the genetics of female bears, it acts as a matriarch.

35:06

We've got your like matriarch in the, in the middle.

35:09

And then that rings out into these females who are their offspring.

35:12

As it goes down through the generations, males, however are made to disperse.

35:19

The mother will chase off her male offspring when they reach the age of dispersal and she'll make them go away and she'll keep after them.

35:29

They will stay in that area for a while, while they grow up.

35:33

But then once they get older, they will disperse quite long distances.

35:36

So we see this quite a bit.

35:38

When we see bears, even coming over to where I live on Vancouver Island in Canada, people will be shocked, but it's not shocking at all.

35:46

Male bears dispersed. They go out to look for their own territories and they do this to avoid inbreeding, to not breed with their siblings.

35:56

So tries to maintain that genetic line.

35:59

So Ashley asks, if it's true that bears had a social structure.

36:02

Yes, it's absolutely true that bears had a social structure.

36:06

So your big adult males, they are your most dominant bears.

36:10

They get the best feeding spots.

36:12

They get access to the best females for breeding.

36:15

They will fight each other for females for breeding.

36:19

So there is definitely a social structure that goes from your big dominant males down to your younger, just the ones who've dispersed, right?

36:28

They're going to be your most subordinate bears.

36:32

Let's get PhD candidate and longtime bear fan Danielle back to address some tawdry bear sex gossip.

36:39

By the way, if you have a Dick, there's a chance it's about the same size as a polar bears or bigger.

36:45

They have like six inch pickles.

36:47

Although some research says that it averages 7.3 inches, but I think that the research was done by polar bears.

36:53

Anyway, bear boning, since they have an actual bone called a baculum, let's get into their romantic lives.

37:00

My next question looks like it's from Megan Burnett.

37:03

I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly, but Megan asks, what is bear reproduction like?

37:09

And when do they, mate bear reproduction is one of those topics that was actually super fascinating to me.

37:15

They're one of the least productive mammals in North America.

37:19

So it takes them a long time to reach sexual maturity and then to have babies.

37:24

And then for those babies to grow up and then also reach sexual maturity and start breeding on their own.

37:29

So if you just think about taking like one male and one female bear and say they reach sexual maturity, as soon as they can, and then they have their own offspring and the offspring survive to do the same.

37:44

It would probably take about 10 years for the population to go from two bears to 15 bears, Very

37:52

impressive by human standards.

37:53

That would be off the charts, but somewhere there's a pair of rats just laughing the rat asses off at bears because rats could grow a family to half a billion descendants in just three years.

38:07

So listen to the road intelligi episode with Bobby Corrigan for more dazzling rat facts because wow, can they make rats?

38:15

Okay. But back to bear, There's

38:16

typically are pretty solitary.

38:18

They're usually only found together when it's a mom with Cubs or during the meeting season.

38:24

So average breeding age for these bears is somewhere around three to five years.

38:30

And just because they've reached sexual maturity doesn't necessarily mean they're actually going to be breeding that year, right?

38:37

Especially males, males might be capable of breeding at three or four years of age, but they usually don't get the chance to, because there's a whole lot of competition from the bigger older male bears out there.

38:50

And it's the female that kind of chooses what's going on, right?

38:53

He doesn't have a whole lot of say.

38:55

He just kind of goes around into these different territories, looking for a female that he can breed with.

39:00

But the larger bears typically in the population are the ones that tend to be the most prolific breeders.

39:06

If you will. Bear breeding season usually is in the spring and summer starts in may and usually lasts maybe until early July.

39:15

Most of the breeding season, I would say probably occurs in June for Brown and black bears in North America.

39:22

I believe it might be a little bit earlier for polar bears because at least the polar bears I research in the Western Hudson Bay population, their breeding season accrues entirely on the ice.

39:32

So sea ice is really important for polar bears.

39:35

Not only because of their access to food, but because really important life history events like the breeding season or occur on ice.

39:42

But typically, like I said, breeding seasons in the spring for these bears and males will go around to different territories looking for whatever females they can find.

39:52

They'll compete with other males for access to those females.

39:56

And it just kind of goes from there.

39:58

I guess it's like I've seen copulation and bears before is a little awkward kind of looks just like two really big dogs doing what dogs do, but you know, they breed and then they have their Cubs born over the winter during the hibernation period.

40:14

And the cycle starts all over.

40:16

Meryl start asked if bears give birth while hibernating.

40:19

So this is really interesting, but yes, they actually do give birth while they're in hibernation.

40:26

Most bear Cubs in North America are born typically in January or February while mom is still in the din for hibernation.

40:35

And when these Cubs are born, they're completely helpless.

40:38

They're blind. They don't have a whole lot of fur, but they are furred.

40:42

They don't really have much going on for teeth in their mouth.

40:45

And they're not really capable of moving around a whole lot on their own.

40:49

So they are going to depend on mom for almost everything that they need, which would include things like getting food.

40:56

So they're going to have to nurse for mom for the duration of the hibernation period.

41:01

And they actually won't even come out of the den with mom until sometime in late March or early April.

41:06

So later in the spring then bears that would be emerging from hibernation without Cubs.

41:11

And mom will usually have anywhere from one to four Cubs.

41:14

Typically she could have more, but two is usually the most common and those Cubs are born really, really small.

41:22

They're like the size of a potato pretty much when they're first born, but by the time they're getting ready to go back into hibernation after their first year, they can be as much as 80 pounds.

41:31

So there's whole lot of growing that goes on during that first season.

41:36

And it's really, really important to remember that even though mom was in hibernation, when she's giving birth to these babies, she's not actually asleep.

41:43

So it's not like she just wakes up surprised in the spring and she's like, Oh no, I've got babies that I have to take care of.

41:50

Like, she's completely aware of what's going on the entire time because she has to take care of them and provide warmth than, you know, nurse them and things like that.

41:59

But it's important also to remember that nursing and lactating is really energetically expensive for these bears.

42:06

And because they're in hibernation, they haven't eaten in a long time.

42:09

They haven't had anything to drink and they do have a much lower metabolic rate than they would normally during the active season, their body temperature drops during hibernation though, not quite as much as other animals that hibernate.

42:23

And so they're basically just kind of working off reserves of what they have stored up from the previous year before they went into the din.

42:31

And so that's what mom is using.

42:34

She's taking stuff from these fat stores that she's accumulated and putting that into making milk for her babies and taking care of her babies.

42:42

She just has to be really careful that she's not extending a whole lot of energy.

42:46

So she's still kind of in that hibernation phase, but she's not actually asleep while she's giving birth and taking care of her Cubs.

42:55

My next question is from Natalie Ashburner right.

42:58

And Natalie wants to know if there are any kinds of bears that are mostly monogamous.

43:04

I

43:04

don't

43:04

think

43:07

so. My experience is mainly with black was Brown bears and polar bears all in North America.

43:12

So I'm not entirely sure what would be going on with bears like sun bears or pandas or Asiatic black bears or spectacle bears or anything like that.

43:23

But it's my understanding that bears in general are not monogamous at all.

43:28

Male bears are very promiscuous.

43:31

They'll find as many females as they can to breed with because the imperative part for them is to just get out there and get those genes spread out into the gene pool.

43:40

They want the babies to be theirs.

43:42

So it doesn't really matter to them how many females they breed with.

43:46

But in addition, female bears actually have more than one meeting partner in a breeding season as well.

43:53

And there could be a, you know, a few different reasons behind that.

43:58

But one of the reasons that I'm most familiar with, at least in North America and for Brown bears that are in Europe, is that there seems to be a pretty high chance sometimes of larger male bears coming back into territories and killing Cubs in order to bring females back into estrous so that they can breed with them.

44:19

Again, a female bear won't breed with a male if she still has Cubs that are with her.

44:24

And like I said before, those Cubs typically stay with mom for the first couple years, maybe three or four years, depending on how clingy they might be or what they might need.

44:34

But males won't read with females that already have Cubs like females won't, they just won't participate.

44:42

So the only way that a male can make that work in his favor is to eliminate the Cubs.

44:48

And so what he'll do is he'll come in and he'll kill the Cubs.

44:51

And that brings the female back into estrous during the breeding season so that he can meet with her and her next set of Cubs will be hits.

44:59

Now that doesn't really work super well for maintaining populations.

45:03

And obviously the female wants her Cubs to survive as well.

45:08

So what the girls kind of all figured out to do was to go out and breed with a bunch of different males because males will remember essentially who they've made it with during that particular breeding season.

45:23

And if there's a possibility that those Cubs are his, he is significantly less likely to come back into that territory later and kill those bears just because it might already be his genes that are there and not somebody else's.

45:37

So the answer to that question is no, I don't know of any barriers that are mostly monogamous.

45:43

I think most species, if not, all of them are rather promiscuous and they have multiple mating partners within a single breeding season.

45:52

My next question and says, Whoa, please talk about bears.

45:57

Reabsorbing embryos.

45:58

Is this more common embarrass that live in closer contact with humans and not question is from IRA gray.

46:06

This is actually one of the most fascinating things, bear reproduction.

46:11

I think this has just completely blown my mind every time I think about it and talk about it.

46:17

But bears do this really crazy thing.

46:20

That's called delayed implantation.

46:21

And basically what that means is bears will have their breeding season in the spring or earlier in the year.

46:29

So like I said, sometime between may and July typically, and the Maria will be fertilized, but it doesn't actually implant in the uterine lining.

46:40

It just kind of hangs out there.

46:43

I'm not really sure what's going on or like how that actually works, but it just hangs out and stays there until it gets a lot closer to when the female starts thinking about going into hibernation.

46:56

And what happens is females that her, at least in Brown bears, females, that don't have at least 20% body fat when they go into hibernation will not reproduce.

47:09

So if the conditions and resources have just been not super great, she can't find enough food.

47:17

She's not overly fat when she's getting ready to go into hibernation.

47:20

She'll actually reabsorb that embryo as if it never happened, because she knows that she doesn't have enough resources to provide for any Cubs that she would produce during that hibernation period.

47:34

It would actually be a super unbeneficial for her to have those Cubs because she might end up starving herself and she would most likely lose any babies that she would have.

47:45

So in a way, females are actually able to decide whether or not they're ready to reproduce whether or not they have enough resources, whether or not they're fat enough to support nursing and lactating through an entire hibernation period is so fascinating to me.

48:04

I don't understand how it works, but that's basically what they do.

48:08

So they breed in the spring and they don't actually get pregnant per se until probably November when they go into their den.

48:17

So there's this whole period of time where the embryo is just kind of floating around in there, hanging out.

48:22

And then right before they go into hibernation, that's when they decide, yes, I can reproduce or no, I can't.

48:28

So either the embryo will be reabsorbed or it will implant in the uterine lining.

48:34

And when the female actually becomes pregnant, that's like I said, probably somewhere around November and then she gives birth in January or February.

48:42

So she's actually pregnant for a very short period of time, considering whether or not this is more common in bears that live in closer contact with humans.

48:52

I'm not necessarily sure to me, it's more of a function of resource availability and whether or not the female thinks that she has enough fat accumulation.

49:04

So in some circumstances, I could see that being beneficial to be closer to humans, because some of those bears might be getting into dumps or other anthropogenic food sources, maybe feeding on things that they're not supposed to necessarily, but they might be fat or bears.

49:22

So maybe in that particular case, they'd be less likely to reabsorb an embryo because they have a lot of resources and they're very fat in other circumstances, I guess it might be the opposite, right?

49:35

If you have a bear that is close to people and that's stressing them out and they feel like they can't get enough access to resources, then reabsorbing that embryo because she's not fat enough when she gets ready to go into hibernation might be the best option for her.

49:51

So I think of it more as a function of resource availability and fatness, or like body fat rather than how close the bear is in contact with humans.

50:03

So many cocktail party facts. This weird bonus, not bonus episode is delivering and will continue to, after a few words about sponsors who are making a possible to donate to not one but six charities this week and West chose the grizzly bear foundation, which is dedicated to the longterm welfare of the grizzly bear North America, Tia chose polar bears, international.org.

50:23

Lana asked that hers go to Northern lights, shelter in Smithers, BC, as they are holding the orphaned grizzly bear Cubs, that she will be releasing this June as part of project rewild.

50:35

And that is wildlife shelter.com.

50:37

Drew Hamilton directed his towards friends of McNeil river.org.

50:41

And Danielle's is going to Idaho black bear rehab.

50:45

And we'll donate to Sony's choice as well.

50:48

There are links to each of those in the show notes.

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53:46

You know what? Shockingly the change over to a new year did not magically solve all of our problems who knew, but one sponsor of the show that I love is better help online counseling, which I myself use.

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How do we know if we're getting better?

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Okay. Moving right along to local motor questions, chapter four, barely getting by let's toss it to drew Hannah

56:46

Cameron ass. I heard bears can't run downhill.

56:48

Is this true bears can run downhill.

56:51

They can run uphill. They can run across Hills.

56:54

I've seen them scale cliffs that we'd have to be roped up to do safely.

56:57

They kind of have the ultimate four wheel drive system, Ronan ass.

57:02

Why the bears walk plenty grade are on their heels like humans.

57:05

And is there an evolutionary reason for this?

57:08

Well, Ronan bears actually spend the vast majority of their time walking quadrupedal or on all four feet so they can stand up and they can walk plenty grade.

57:20

Now, if they were to be walking plenty of grade, the main reason for this would likely be a significant injury to one of their front paws.

57:29

So an injury where it's the weightbearing of it would hurt them.

57:34

So it's easier for them to walk fun to grade on their back feet.

57:38

I saw this once in a video with a black bear in town, and it did have a significant injury to its front paw.

57:44

And so it was walking like a human.

57:46

So why would they stand on their back legs?

57:49

Okay. One of the main reasons that they stand on their back legs is when they are trying to see something or trying to figure out what something is.

57:58

So you'll see them stand up on their back legs.

58:01

And oftentimes with this, they may swing their head slightly from side to side.

58:06

And what they're trying to do is catch the scent on the wind so that they can identify what it is they think they saw.

58:13

So for example, sometimes when you're hiking, if you come across a bear and it's not quite sure what that is, you may see it stand on its hind legs and swing its head from side to side.

58:22

And then you're going to hope that you've taken account of your wind direction and that the wind is blowing in such a direction that it's blowing at the bear.

58:29

And therefore it can catch your scent on the wind and identify you as human.

58:34

Dr. Tia Beck shaft is technically a Marine mammal scientist studying polar bears.

58:39

Michael P S is asking what makes polar bear such good swimmers or all bears as good at swimming as polar bears.

58:48

And I just don't know it.

58:49

I need answers. Thanks.

58:51

So as far as I know, all eight bear species can swim though.

58:58

Some swim more and longer than others and polar bears.

59:03

For example, they are experts at doggy paddle swimming.

59:07

So they use their front paws to paddle with wild, their hind legs trail behind them, kind of steer them like in a rudder and data from satellite colors show that swims have an average, a hundred kilometers Or

59:22

62 miles over three days are not unusual.

59:26

However, the most extreme polar bear swim that we know of was an adult female.

59:32

She swam for nine days straight, a total of 687 kilometers or 426 miles, which is just mindblowing.

59:42

However, swimming is very energetically costly for the polar bears and this swim, this incredible swim actually costs this adult female, her Cub, which was with her in the beginning.

59:56

And it also costs her 22% of her body fat meaning that although this swim was physically possible for her, it was definitely a challenge.

1:00:06

One of the consequences of climate change is that the Arctic sea ice gets more scattered, more fragmented.

1:00:13

There was a new paper published recently showing that polar bears now are actually having to spend three to four times more energy than their grandparents did simply because of the changes that we're seeing to their habitat to the sea ice, which of course also is their essential hunting habitat.

1:00:32

And so they have to spend more energy to be able to catch, see It's

1:00:38

kind of like student loan debt, but with your luscious blubber, booty getting spent on bullshit that your elders didn't have to deal with, but in this case it wasn't their fault.

1:00:46

So what do they do? Do they just completely fuck off and just go live in the sea?

1:00:51

I would, Christopher

1:00:52

Blackington is asking, has any research been done on the possibility of polar bears evolving into full-time sea mammals like seals or even cetaceans, they spend so much of their time at sea.

1:01:05

It seems like a natural next step for them.

1:01:08

So, interesting question.

1:01:10

There is no research on this that I know off polar bears are Marine mammals it's even in their Latin name, they're called Ursula's Meredith timers or the, the sea bear.

1:01:22

But that being said, they still rely a lot on there for, for heat and for doesn't really keep you warm underwater.

1:01:32

There, you have to have a good blubber layer instead to keep you warm.

1:01:36

And also a polar bear Cubs fare quite poorly in the cold water, which is why pullover moms will often, you know, take the long way around on the sea ice so that they can walk on top of the sea ice instead of having to have their Cubs swim in the water between ice flows.

1:01:55

So I don't see it happening anytime soon, but you know, let's wait a few million years and see where evolution takes the polo beer Antarctica,

1:02:05

because that would be like humans moving to a planet, literally called no human can live here.

1:02:11

Hannah Knuth asks Why

1:02:14

aren't there polar bears in an Arctica.

1:02:16

So to answer this question, need to think about how the different continents have moved around during the different geological time periods.

1:02:24

And an Arctica has actually been separated from other continents by a vast Southern ocean for about 45 million years, which is good since before polar bears evolved the family or CD, which polar bears are a part of didn't show up evolutionarily until about 30 million years ago.

1:02:47

So even if they want it, polar bears just couldn't really get to the end Arctic even if they want it to the end.

1:02:56

Arctic is simply just too far away for polar bears.

1:02:59

They are excellent swimmers, but they would struggle to migrate all the way to the South It's

1:03:05

too far. She doesn't see it happening.

1:03:07

Now, speaking of seeing actually, while a spectacle bear is one species of South American cloud forest dwelling bear should all bears be spectacle bears.

1:03:17

Drew will feel at this one, Lauren

1:03:20

asked, can they not see? Well, the bears need glasses bear see about as well as we do there.

1:03:27

A lot of people will tell you, they don't see well, but it's not that their eyesight is poor it's that they it's not their most dominant sense.

1:03:34

They are.

1:03:34

They're following their sense of smell.

1:03:37

Their sense of smell is so much better than ours, that they rely on that more than their vision.

1:03:44

That

1:03:44

being

1:03:44

said,

1:03:44

I

1:03:44

do

1:03:44

know

1:03:44

a

1:03:44

couple

1:03:44

of

1:03:44

bears

1:03:44

that

1:03:44

squint

1:03:44

a

1:03:44

lot

1:03:44

and

1:03:44

probably

1:03:44

could

1:03:44

use

1:03:44

a,

1:03:44

a

1:03:44

set

1:03:44

of

1:03:44

glasses

1:03:44

or

1:03:44

maybe

1:03:44

some

1:03:44

contact

1:03:44

lenses

1:03:44

to

1:03:44

make

1:03:44

it

1:03:44

easier

1:03:44

to

1:03:44

catch

1:03:55

fish. And Fritz asked, I've read that bears black bears in the study, I read about have some form of color vision.

1:04:00

Do we know much about how they see and how about differences in their ability to see color based on species from everything I've read?

1:04:08

Yes. Bears do see color. It's probably not quite the spectrum we see, but some diminished version of that one study in particular looked at polar bears, vision and determined that they were missing a portion of the green spectrum, which always begs the question.

1:04:26

They have the best seat in the house for the Northern lights, which oftentimes will appear green to humans.

1:04:34

So I always wonder what the Northern lights look like to polar bears By

1:04:40

the, by at True's Instagram is linked on my website too, in his photos of the Northern lights are bonkers.

1:04:46

So do follow him.

1:04:47

He's at drew HH. Now what about a bear following you?

1:04:51

Tia addresses polar rumors possible.

1:04:54

Flimflam Jesse Hurlbert

1:04:56

is asking, do polar bears really hunt people.

1:05:00

So not really no sea ice loss has led to an increase in polar bear sightings in Northern coastal communities around the Arctic.

1:05:11

And even though polar bears sometimes will enter human settlements out of curiosity.

1:05:16

The main reason they do so is hunger because without healthy CIS platform that they can hunt seals from polar bears will start looking for food and other places.

1:05:27

And quite often this is to their own detriment.

1:05:30

So we are expecting human polar bear encounters to increase as more polar bears are forced to spend longer periods of time on shore and as human activities increase, which of course is both in response to longer ice-free seasons.

1:05:48

All of that being said, polar bears don't really hunt people.

1:05:54

It's a persistent myth, but there is very little reality in it.

1:06:00

Now, if you come across a bear that is hungry, or if you somehow manage to surprise it, or if you come between a mom and her Cubs, that's not a good situation to be in.

1:06:13

However, I think the main issue here is that pull up ears really are not afraid of very much.

1:06:21

They're very opportunistic.

1:06:22

They're very curious.

1:06:24

And if there's something that looks interesting, they are very likely to want to investigate.

1:06:30

And here's the problem is that even if they're just investigating a person that they come across, humans are fairly small and squishy and polar bears or very big and have quite a few pointy bits, quite a few pointy bits and a dialect is asking.

1:06:50

So if attacked by a black bear, they say, you should fight back.

1:06:55

If attacked by a Brown bear or a grizzly, you should play dead.

1:06:58

What about polar bears?

1:07:00

Well, I mean, if you're attacked, you should definitely fight with everything that you have for sure.

1:07:07

There is no point to playing dead because yeah, polar bears don't mind, you know, sinking their teeth into carcasses.

1:07:17

For example, if there's a whale carcass that washed up on a beach, but of course the best way to avoid polar bear attacks is to be very mindful of your surroundings when you're in polar bear country.

1:07:31

And so always have a polar bear guard, always have a lookout when you're in polar bear country.

1:07:37

That way you're not surprising a bear and a bear is not surprising.

1:07:42

You and everyone is all the happier for it.

1:07:46

So bears, they do not like surprise parties for all of us who love being out in nature and also want to do right by the bears because they deserve it.

1:07:54

Lana chimes in with more advice.

1:07:57

Okay. So Hannah asks attacks aside, what are the best ways to prevent a bear counter?

1:08:03

So, Hannah, this is really kind of dependent on whether you're going to going camping or whether you're hiking or whether you're asking me about what are the best ways to prevent an encounter around home, like moving your bird feeder.

1:08:16

So I'm going to answer it like you're going hiking.

1:08:19

So one of the best ways to prevent a bear encounter is first know where you're going, what time of year you're going there and where you're most likely going to encounter that bear.

1:08:31

So if you're going to hike, for example, in Berry season through a Berry patch, that might not be the best way to go.

1:08:36

So you want to avoid their critical habitats or avoid places where those bears are most likely to be.

1:08:43

Another way we can prevent encounters is to really be aware of our surroundings.

1:08:48

So rather than unplugging and plugging in things like earbuds and listening to music, you want to have your ears open, have your eyes open, have your nose open.

1:09:00

So you want to make sure there's no really bad smells like a dead animal somewhere that might be attracting a bear, or you want to make sure that you're looking all around you and know what's going on.

1:09:12

Is there any bear sign? Is there scat?

1:09:14

Do you see scat is bear poop.

1:09:17

By the way, that's what we call it.

1:09:19

Is there scat on the trail?

1:09:21

Do you see a bunch of birds that could indicate maybe a carcass ahead, those kinds of things.

1:09:26

And then when we're hiking ourselves, you asked, does singing loudly work.

1:09:31

Absolutely. I highly recommend using your voice.

1:09:36

Your voice identifies you as humans and the vast majority of bears, no humans and human beings.

1:09:44

So singing loudly definitely works.

1:09:47

Clapping. Your hands absolutely works.

1:09:50

You've asked here about bear bells.

1:09:52

I don't recommend bear bells.

1:09:55

I don't recommend bear bells because they don't identify you as human they've been shown to be in the same decibel range as birds and bears are curious.

1:10:05

So we don't want to actually attract them.

1:10:07

So I actually don't recommend bear bells.

1:10:10

Another thing you want to do Hannah is know your line of sight.

1:10:14

So if you're coming up to a blind corner, you certainly want to be using your, your voice and clapping your hands or singing loudly.

1:10:23

As you say before, you're going to come around that corner warning, the bear that you're coming, we don't want surprise encounters.

1:10:30

So we want a really good line of sight around us.

1:10:34

We want to keep our eyes open.

1:10:36

We want to keep our ears open and our nose open and bear country avoid those surprise encounters and let bears know we're coming.

1:10:44

Also, we never ever, ever feed bears or provide food for them.

1:10:50

So bears can find their own food.

1:10:53

Do, do not provide human food for them.

1:10:55

It really is true that a fed bear becomes a dead bear.

1:10:59

Another thing that we want to keep in mind and preventing a bear encounter is the direction of the wind.

1:11:03

So is the wind blowing toward you?

1:11:06

Is it caring or your scent down the trail so that the bear can get your scent before it's there?

1:11:13

So if you're using your voice and then it picks up your scent and the wind bears have an excellent sense of smell.

1:11:18

So if they can get that sent bears really do their best to co-exist with us.

1:11:25

And a lot of times they'll just move right off that trail, be silent as they can and allow you to pass by.

1:11:30

And you might not even know they're there.

1:11:33

So wind direction is really important when directions also important because I highly recommend that if you're going into bear country, you're carried bear spray, bear spray is an excellent, excellent tool.

1:11:48

Should you ever need it? We'd ever want a negative encounter with a bear, but should we have one?

1:11:53

We want to be prepared for it.

1:11:55

You're also really going to want to know your wind direction then, because the last thing you want is to dispense that spray and get it back all over you, because it really does debilitate.

1:12:04

You sort of incapacitates you for quite a while.

1:12:07

West has Teddy bears all over the world and has not gotten killed one time.

1:12:12

So let's hear his advice.

1:12:15

Okay? Okay. Lucy asked, I've heard mixed reviews on tools like bear bells and bear bangers and a firsthand seen that bear spray does basically nothing.

1:12:22

What are the best tools for people to have with them when they head out into bear country?

1:12:26

Well, Lucy, I'm going to have to disagree with you on the bear spray thing.

1:12:30

I've also seen it firsthand a lot of times, and I've seen it work almost every time.

1:12:36

I've seen it deployed, whether that's in person or in videos or anything.

1:12:40

My mentor was kind of the guy that wrote the paper on bear spray, and it's been proven to be really, really effective, much more effective than firearms even.

1:12:49

So bear spray is definitely the number one tool I would recommend people take with them into bear country, especially if you're going to be around Brown bears, the bear bells don't really work.

1:12:59

Sometimes we actually joke around and call those dinner bells.

1:13:02

There's just nothing.

1:13:03

There's no real biological significance to that noise for bears, that it doesn't really register for them.

1:13:10

It's not something that they necessarily pay attention to bear bangers, which are like the little flares or the little pop gun kind of blast that you can shoot at them or like Cracker shells or anything like that.

1:13:21

All of that stuff works really well.

1:13:23

They don't like flares flying out them. They don't like loud noises.

1:13:25

Those all work for me.

1:13:28

I carry bear spray. And then I have, you know, sometimes a firearm as a backup.

1:13:34

Okay. Shelly Carr asked bear seems so gigantic compared to what they eat.

1:13:38

Are they just eating all the time?

1:13:40

That's all in caps or did they have a slow metabolism?

1:13:43

It's a great question.

1:13:44

They're pretty much just eating all the time, especially in the fall, right before hibernation, when they go through hyperphasia that's a time when they really are trying to pack on the pounds and a bear will eat just about anything.

1:13:59

It comes across. They just really don't pass up any kind of feeding opportunities.

1:14:03

So for example, a bear on a salmon stream will eat dozens of salmon in a given day.

1:14:08

A bear in a Berry patch can eat over hundred thousand berries in a single day.

1:14:13

And in hyperphasia they're eating like anywhere from like 30 to 60,000 calories a day.

1:14:19

So they're really just packing on the pounds.

1:14:21

And that's a big part of why human food is such a problem for them because them eating a box of Twinkies essentially gives them the same amount of calories as they would for meeting berries all day long.

1:14:33

So they really take advantage of any kind of high, fat, high, sugar food they can get.

1:14:39

And once they get it, they just want it more and more and more.

1:14:41

So that's why the ones that get human food become problem bears.

1:14:45

But yeah, they are. They're really just that big because they don't pass up.

1:14:48

Food Bears are just shameless, chow, hounds prepping for winter.

1:14:52

And we love them for that except for when they eat the last of our cereal.

1:14:56

And as Lonnie has spent so much time photographing bears and even traveling by van on whims to different locations with his wife, how do they keep their snacks safe?

1:15:06

Patron, Hillary Kremlin had a question, Bear

1:15:09

boxes. I know bear boxes are important for camping.

1:15:12

They're also expensive. What's the next best thing.

1:15:15

Typically, if you're, you know, in, in a, in a campsite they're already have the metal lockers for you, some campgrounds will even rent you a bear bin.

1:15:23

I've seen them for $5 a week or so you can always go to your local, a gear store and get a bear canister.

1:15:31

Those are usually 50 to 80 bucks.

1:15:33

And then you can get a really good one for two to 300 bucks.

1:15:37

But I think, you know, keeping yourself safe and keeping the bears safe.

1:15:42

An $80 investment is not really too much to ask.

1:15:46

If you simply cannot afford one, then I suggest just being super conscious and cautious of your food, handling story, your food, a hundred yards away from when you're camping cook a hundred yards away from when you're camping in a different direction, you can try hanging your food.

1:16:05

Although bears are pretty good climbers and usually can find a way to get to it.

1:16:09

But yeah, I, I think a bear canister is not that much, but again, if you can't do it, there's always that you can get around it.

1:16:16

Wes is back to answer his last question on his list, which I thought was a very tender and sweet, to be honest.

1:16:23

Finally, we have a question from Kate Murphy.

1:16:25

First-time question asker asked my dad has always had a fear of bears.

1:16:29

So I asked him what he wanted to know here is questions.

1:16:33

One have bears been reported using tools?

1:16:36

Yes, they have recently there a paper about a Brown bear that actually used a rock that was barnacle and crusted, and it was scratching itself with that rock.

1:16:46

It like positioned it just right, so it could rub its body on it and scratch it.

1:16:50

And that was one of the first recorded bear tool use.

1:16:54

That's been documented by scientists and it's in the literature.

1:16:58

This paper side note titled tool use in the Brown bear versus Arktos appeared in the journal animal cognition and was written by Dr.

1:17:05

Volker Deak and associate professor in wildlife conservation at the university of Cumbria.

1:17:10

And it paints quite a splashy picture.

1:17:12

It says the animal repeatedly picked up barnacle and crusted rocks in shallow water manipulated and reoriented them in its four paws and use them to rub its neck and muscle.

1:17:22

The bear exhibited considerable motor skills when manipulating the rocks, the bears like, Oh, thank you so much.

1:17:29

So they do sometimes use tools, but it's very rare and it really hasn't been recorded very many times, really just once.

1:17:35

And then the second question is how do bears respond to music and do they sing bears?

1:17:41

Don't like loud music. If you're hiking on a trail and you're playing loud music or something, it's going to be annoying to all the other hikers, but also bears typically tend to run away from any kind of music or loud music as far as if you were just to play like soothing music for bears for awhile, I'm sure they'd get used to it.

1:17:59

I don't know how exactly they would respond to it.

1:18:02

And then the second part of that question is, do they sing?

1:18:04

They don't sing.

1:18:05

As far as I know, that's a great question.

1:18:07

They do. As I mentioned earlier, make a lot of different vocalizations, but I've never heard of a singing bear.

1:18:13

Well, thanks so much for the questions guys.

1:18:16

I'm really happy to answer them again.

1:18:19

My name is West Larson. You can find me on Instagram at Griz kid, and then also a project that I'm working on right now that I'd love to tell you guys about is another podcast it's called tooth and claw.

1:18:30

It's about human wildlife conflict.

1:18:32

It's about attack stories.

1:18:34

We talk about these different animal attacks, and then I explain what the people could have done better to avoid them and how they can prevent them.

1:18:42

And we tell a lot of fun stories in that podcast.

1:18:44

So that's called tooth and cloth.

1:18:46

Yeah. And that's pretty much it, as far as the charity, I've picked the grizzly bear foundation, which is a great grizzly bear charity that I've done some good work with.

1:18:54

And I really liked those guys. So that's what I'd like to send the money to.

1:18:57

All right, thanks a lot.

1:18:59

And this brings us to our final chapter, chapter five, pressing pause on bear peril.

1:19:04

Let's go back to Tia with the polars because they seem the most screwed.

1:19:08

Also Dr. Beck shaft. I'm sorry that I made you read off the F-word.

1:19:12

I believed it just in case you don't want it on record that I made you read off the F-word about bears.

1:19:18

So Kelsey story is asking how there are bears in general and polar bears in particular, the majority of the world's bears are in trouble because of human costs, habitat loss for polar bears.

1:19:34

Of course, this habitat loss is the loss of sea ice, their primary habitat for hunting, traveling, meeting, and for raising their young.

1:19:44

And so to answer your question, it really depends on our everyday choices and on the civic leaders that we elect.

1:19:54

If we want to limit the consequences of climate change on polar bears, as well as humans, we really need Swift political action.

1:20:02

We need to vote with the climate in mind in each and every election.

1:20:06

And let our representatives know that we support bold climate action.

1:20:11

If we use this window of opportunity that we have for climate change solutions, we can reduce the detrimental effects of climate change in the years to come, we will still see a decline in sea ice quality and extent, and polar bears will suffer the consequences of that.

1:20:27

But if we manage to lower the temperature in the Arctic, again, the CIS will eventually be restored and the bears will have a chance to thrive once again.

1:20:37

However, if we choose to continue burning fossil fuels and emitting greenhouse gases at the current rate, it is predicted that we could lose up to one third or more of the world's wild polar bears within the next 35 to 40 years.

1:20:55

So yeah, I cannot even overstate the importance of this.

1:21:01

We still have a window of opportunity if we act swiftly and we greatly reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, we can absolutely still limit the adverse impacts of climate change.

1:21:14

Not only in the Arctic, but also globally.

1:21:16

We have fully, we have the power to stop human costs, climate change, and to save the Arctic ecosystem, including the polo bear, Katy, Timothy, and probably a lot of other people want to know, how can we save the polar bears?

1:21:33

So polar bears need the sea ice as a platform for hunting seals without the CIS polar bears won't have access to this incredibly energy rich prey that otherwise keeps them around and healthy.

1:21:46

So no CIS means no polar bears.

1:21:49

We have to protect the Arctic sea ice.

1:21:52

And in addition to being essential to the health and safety of people and animals in the North, it also plays an essential role in keeping our climate stable around the entire world.

1:22:03

So to save the sea ice, to protect polar bears and to improve conditions for people around the world, we have to actively reduce the risks.

1:22:13

And the best way to do this is by reducing our use of fossil fuels.

1:22:18

Because when we burn fossil fuels like coal and oil and natural gas for energy, we release more and more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

1:22:27

And the atmosphere is like a blanket that surrounds the earth.

1:22:32

And normally it helps keep our world at a stable, livable temperature.

1:22:37

However, every time we add extra carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, it's like we're thickening this blanket, making it harder for the heat to escape.

1:22:46

And so this extra heat becomes trapped under the blanket, warming up our world and disrupting the climate.

1:22:53

And for polar bears, this disruption takes the form of habitat loss.

1:22:58

So the warmer, the Arctic is the less sea ice is formed.

1:23:02

And again, no sea ice means no polar bears.

1:23:05

Each of us can play a role in protecting a polar bears future and our own by becoming involved in our communities and working to change systems.

1:23:14

So this means that we must vote with the climate in mind at every level of government supporting civic leaders who understand the importance of addressing climate change and who commit to making renewable energy, the easy and affordable choice across all communities.

1:23:31

And in addition to this, simply talking about climate change is incredibly valuable.

1:23:37

Most people are just as worried about climate change as you are.

1:23:41

But if we want to speed up that transition from fossil fuels to green energy, we need to start including the climate and climate change solutions in our everyday conversations, Kathryn Finney is asking, I've heard people propose, we move the polar bears to an article to help them avoid extinction.

1:24:02

Is this bad of an idea as it sounds like it is?

1:24:06

Well, Catherine, for some reason, this is a question I get asked quite frequently.

1:24:13

In other words, there's probably a number of you out there wondering the exact same thing.

1:24:17

So in theory, yes, we could absolutely move some or even all polar bears from the Arctic to Antarctica, at least for a while, they would probably thrive feasting on the penguins and, and Arctic seals because, and Arctic animals are not used to any predatory threat while they're on land.

1:24:39

So they would likely not even try to flee from the bears.

1:24:42

It would be like one big polar bear buffet.

1:24:45

This obviously would also be one of the biggest problems with introducing polar bears to end Arctica the bears would just wreak absolute havoc on the end Arctic ecosystem.

1:24:56

And even if it were to happen, a land chase between a polo bear and a penguin is no contest.

1:25:03

And very soon the penguin populations would be severely decimated.

1:25:07

The same would likely happen to the seals, not least because polar bears would be able to eat their way through the seal pupping fields with no problems and Arctic seals give birth on the open sea ice and not in birth layers under the snow as the Arctic ring seal does, which is the polar bears primary prey.

1:25:29

So in other words, what started out as a feast for the polar bears would soon turn to feminine instead because the available prey would disappear leaving the polar bears with nothing to eat.

1:25:42

And so, you know, while this devastation of the Antarctic ecosystem would be the most obvious reason to not move the bears tend to Arctica.

1:25:51

There are other considerations to, for example, even though they're similar at first glance and Arctica is an average much colder than the Arctic temperatures easily go as low as minus 60 degrees Celsius or minus 76 degrees Fahrenheit.

1:26:09

Polar bears are really well-insulated, but not for temperatures that are this low for very long, and it will require massive extra amounts of food year round to keep the bears with the energy and need it to stay warm and alive.

1:26:27

And so sufficient pray is unlikely to be available year round in the end, Arctic and the bears could end up freezing or starving to death.

1:26:37

Logistics would be another challenge, which bears would you move?

1:26:41

Would you attempt to still keep the currently existing polar bear subpopulation separate?

1:26:47

How would you catch them?

1:26:49

And also very importantly, who would pay the simply enormous cost of the project.

1:26:55

So to sum up, yep.

1:26:57

Moving polar bears to Antarctica could definitely be done, but it would create more problems study.

1:27:03

It would solve the reasons I listed above are just a few for why moving the bears will be an ecological disaster in every imaginable way.

1:27:13

Polar bears evolved in the North and are superbly perfectly evolved for the Arctic environment that they inhabit.

1:27:21

And so moving polar bears to Antarctica in the hope of saving the species would be an extremely short-sighted solution.

1:27:31

Indeed. So I, for one strongly suggest that we instead focus all of our energy on curbing climate change.

1:27:39

Drew weighs in on our Brown bear friends.

1:27:42

Ryan G asks, how are bears coping with climate change?

1:27:45

Not just polar bears, but all bears.

1:27:47

I think most people have heard how polar bears are coping with climate change, but Brown bears and black bears are much more adaptable than their polar cousins.

1:27:57

So here in Alaska, specifically, the Brown bears that specialize in salmon are going to have problems with warming, warming, streams, warming water temperatures.

1:28:09

Once a certain temperature threshold is breached.

1:28:13

Those streams can no longer support salmon.

1:28:16

And that's when bears are going to start roaming around and looking for other food sources, potentially bringing them into proximity and conflict with humans.

1:28:24

And when bears and humans have conflict, the bears always lose To

1:28:29

give them a little bit of a win through asset.

1:28:31

A donation be made to friends of the McNeil river.

1:28:34

And you will find a link to them in the show notes.

1:28:36

Now, if you are team bear in your heart, but you want to be professionally team bear, Dr.

1:28:42

Lena has advice.

1:28:45

So Rebecca writes that she wants to be an earth sinologist and that all of her bear research and field work so far has been through various volunteer programs.

1:28:53

So she's asking me if there was a specific branch of work that I would recommend like the national park service versus sanctuaries versus researchers.

1:29:02

So Rebecca, no, I am there isn't a branch that I would recommend.

1:29:06

It takes all of us and it takes all of those people to truly put together a conservation effort.

1:29:12

What I would recommend is that you decide, you take a look at yourself and all the work going on out there, and what really interests you, which branch of bears really fascinates you and follow that, follow your passion.

1:29:28

Rebecca followed up her question with what branch of research, what I recommend to basically, how does she get to live my life as an independent research scientist working on bears.

1:29:40

So Rebecca, in all honesty, I came across bears in my undergrad in one of my classes and I did a directed study on them.

1:29:50

And then I did an undergraduate thesis because it just, it really fascinated me.

1:29:54

I did it on there's being disrupted during Denning, by snowmobiles.

1:29:57

And it's something I, at that time in my life had never thought about this is well back in the 1990s.

1:30:04

And so I just started following that and reading, reading more about it and did an undergraduate thesis on the bear poaching trade, and then decided that I was really interested in bears and wanted to continue in this realm.

1:30:18

So I was really interested in bare human interactions.

1:30:21

So I sought out Dr.

1:30:23

Stephen Herero and if you haven't read his book, bear attacks there causes it avoidance.

1:30:27

It is still the Bible today for bears and human bear encounters.

1:30:32

And I applied for a masters with Steve Herero and I got accepted into that program and did my masters with him on human bear conflicts in a park called leotard river Hotsprings provincial park in Northern BC.

1:30:44

And that was on black bears and still obsessed with bears.

1:30:47

I traveled around working as a technician for a number of different people, on a number of different field projects, in a number of different locations, all across Canada and decided I wanted to do my PhD this time.

1:31:00

I wanted to work with grizzly bears and I wanted to get my mathematical skills up, my quantitative and my modeling skills up.

1:31:07

So I located a professor at the university of Alberta, Dr.

1:31:11

Mark Boyce, who was very strong in that field.

1:31:14

And I followed that passion and I did the parsonage grizzly bear project.

1:31:18

So I guess basically what this long answer to your question is, is I just kept following my passion and I just kept following what I wanted to do.

1:31:27

And like you, I also volunteer countless hours towards conservation Kimberly notes that she's back if needed by carnivores and would love to get involved in some way research.

1:31:37

So she asks what gaps are there in research on earth today in general?

1:31:42

So Kimberly, we're looking at gaps, I guess now for our North American bear species, I think a hot topic is climate change.

1:31:52

So how is warming affecting bears for, from a human bear conflict perspective?

1:31:58

What I specialize in, we're seeing a shortening of the Denning period.

1:32:02

So bears are not denting for as long in some areas and that can of course increase human bear conflicts because they're out of the den for a longer period.

1:32:10

So they have more time to potentially get in conflict with humans.

1:32:14

Another thing we're seeing in coastal populations is a look at the salmon runs.

1:32:19

So we'll look at the food resources for bears, what's going on with them and with global warming and the temperature rise in our see what's happening with our salmon.

1:32:27

And if that is affected, what in turn will happen with those coastal bears and looking at this question from an international perspective.

1:32:35

So in my work with the IUC and bear specialist group, there are a number of gaps with our Asian species.

1:32:42

So sun bears, we're really just starting to learn about them, their ecology, their biology.

1:32:47

So things we kind of take for granted that we know of with our North American species.

1:32:51

We're just learning about those things with a number of species over in Asia, the slaw bear, the sun bear, and also in South America, the spectacle bear.

1:33:00

So this comes back sort of to Rebecca's question, Kimberly, you need to just ask yourself what area really fascinates you and what can we look at in that area?

1:33:11

Another big topic with bears is connectivity.

1:33:13

So trying to reconnect these small and isolated populations that we have.

1:33:18

So we'll see that even in the U S where you're likely based, or I'm assuming your base, so trying to reconnect these populations.

1:33:25

So taking these islands and linking them back up for the health of the bears and the genetics of those bear species, conductivity threatened populations.

1:33:34

So lots of conservation biology that is still left to explore in thinking about Kimberly and Rebecca's questions and where those of you who are listening that are really interested in bears are all you want to be are sinologist, which by the way, is a new word for me, that I'm going to call myself from now on.

1:33:53

Cause I, I quite like it.

1:33:55

Anyway. I encourage you to check out the international association for bear research and management.

1:34:01

So the acronym is the IBA or the international association for bear research and management.

1:34:07

That is our international association.

1:34:09

We host conferences.

1:34:11

There's a number of great people.

1:34:14

There's a jobs board, there's a newsletter.

1:34:16

You can read what's going on, what projects are going on around the world.

1:34:20

And you can find out a lot more information on bears from the IBA, also the bear specialist group.

1:34:27

So the IECN international union for the conservation of natures bear specialist group also has a webpage.

1:34:33

It is linked to on the IBA webpage, and that can show you more on the research that our teams are doing, and what's going on around the world with our bear species.

1:34:44

So thank you very much for having me.

1:34:47

And I hope that those listening will think about bears when they go out into bear habitat and the conservation of bears and protecting their habitat and minimizing Negative

1:34:58

human bear encounters.

1:35:00

You can follow Dr. Joan yellow on Twitter at Lana Charney, yellow, and I very much suggest you do.

1:35:06

She's awesome. What about polar bear expert, Dr.

1:35:10

Tia back shaft. If You want to follow me online, you can find me on Facebook and on Instagram at pull up air questions.

1:35:19

You can also find me on Twitter at bio TIAA.

1:35:23

Now, the charity that I choose to support is polar bears.

1:35:26

International polar bears.

1:35:28

International is a nonprofit conservation organization and their mission is to conserve polar bears and the CIS that they depend on, and this work is done through mediums, through science and advocacy, to inspire people to care about the Arctic, the threats to its future and to the connection between this remote region and our global climate.

1:35:51

And of course, we're tossing some cash toward Danielle Yvette's org of choice.

1:35:55

Thank you for the donation to a bear charity of my choosing.

1:35:59

And for this particular episode, I would appreciate it.

1:36:04

If any donations could go to the Idaho black bear rehab, that's in garden city, Idaho.

1:36:09

I'm not originally from Idaho, I'm from Virginia, but this particular rehab is operated by a wildlife rehabber who has basically dedicated the last 30 years of her life to giving orphaned black bear Cubs, a second chance.

1:36:25

They are able to rescue and rehabilitate and release orphan Cubs whenever they get them in.

1:36:30

And they just really have a great bear rehab program.

1:36:33

They have lots of trained rehabilitators that work there, and they try to work with the state wildlife agencies to make sure that bear rehab is a standard part of their management policies.

1:36:45

Now they're also very involved in educating the public about Blackberry rehab and how all of us really are responsible for protecting wild bears in their habitat.

1:36:54

So I'd hope Blackberry rehab is a really, really great place to think about maybe making a donation if you're interested in that kind of thing.

1:37:04

That's Idaho Blackberry rehab in garden city, Idaho.

1:37:07

Thank you so much, Ellie, for having me.

1:37:10

This has been so much fun. I'm so glad to say that I've finally now been on an episode of ologies.

1:37:15

I am so excited.

1:37:17

I never thought that that would ever happen.

1:37:19

So thank you so, so much for that and for everyone who sent in such great questions for us to answer, if you're interested, I am on Twitter, you can follow me there at grizzly girl, 87 that's G R I Z Z L Y G I R L eight seven on Twitter.

1:37:38

Also, if you're interested, we did just recently get started with a Zooniverse project called the Arctic bears project.

1:37:46

So you can, if you're familiar with Zooniverse, you can go there and look at a lot of the camera trap photos that we've been getting of all the different kinds of Arctic animals that we see at the remote field camps in national park, where we are using remote trail cams to monitor the Western Hudson Bay polar bear population.

1:38:07

But we have lots of other really cool animals on those photos as well.

1:38:11

And it just kind of gives you an opportunity to go through and see what kinds of animals and the data and the photos that we're working with.

1:38:18

It's so cool. Lots of cute little caribou babies and polar bear babies, and all sorts of really exciting things there.

1:38:26

So make sure you go to Zooniverse and check out the Arctic bears project.

1:38:30

So help scientists help the bears.

1:38:32

You can do that right now, even if you are in no pants or on a bus or on a bus with no pants or in Antarctica with no bears.

1:38:40

And let this be a lesson to ask seven smart experts do fi questions about bears, because look at this wealth of information and love for bears.

1:38:49

We now have also, I would like to be friends with all of them, if that is okay.

1:38:54

Now there are links to all of the great things we talked about with Chris Morgan and to so many things that we chatted about with these six earth sinologist up at alleyway.com/ology/earth.

1:39:03

Synology

1:39:03

there's

1:39:03

also

1:39:03

links

1:39:03

to

1:39:03

their

1:39:03

socials

1:39:03

in

1:39:03

the

1:39:03

show

1:39:08

notes. I suggest you follow all of them right now and get more bears in your timeline.

1:39:11

I did.

1:39:12

There was no looking back. It's the best choice I've made in 2021.

1:39:15

Now you can follow us at ologies on Twitter and Instagram.

1:39:19

I'm both at Alie ward with one L ologies Merck is available at dot com.

1:39:25

Thank you, Shannon Feltus and Bonnie Dutch, who hosts the Comey podcast.

1:39:27

You are that for managing the merge.

1:39:29

Thank you, Aaron Talbert for admining the ologies podcast Facebook group.

1:39:33

Thank you, Noel for scheduling so much.

1:39:36

It makes so amazing. Thank you, Emily White of the website, watery for making transcripts of the episodes, Kayla patent bleeps them.

1:39:43

And those are [email protected] slash dash extras linked to that in the show notes, thank you to full-time fiance and co editor, Jared sleeper for getting through these edits with me.

1:39:54

This episode turned out to be a real beast, and I'm so excited about it, and I'm so happy to have it out in the world, even if we were stumbling to put it up and as always, thank you, Steven Ray Morris of the PIR cast and the dyno podcast see drastic, right?

1:40:09

For bearing with these big episodes as well.

1:40:11

Nick Thorburn wrote and performed the theme music.

1:40:13

And if you listen until the end, you're forced to hear me confess something to you.

1:40:18

And this week I'm just going to straight up say it.

1:40:20

I don't think I knew until way too recently that there were no polar bears in Antarctica.

1:40:25

I never learned that until probably like two years ago.

1:40:29

Maybe if that, I kinda thought that all the polar bears were down there.

1:40:34

I was like, that's where the ice is.

1:40:37

Right? I had no idea. Also when I was a kid, I thought that there was an NRA in the, on the bottom.

1:40:43

And then there was like an Arctic continent on the top kind of like earth was a burger and those were just ice buns.

1:40:50

So Hey, you know what?

1:40:52

We don't know everything. Okay.

1:40:54

Apparently there's no bears in Antarctica who knew it meant no bears are.

1:41:00

Sinologist also hummus tastes pretty good on hard-boiled eggs.

1:41:04

Now, you know, until next week where I put up an episode on time, probably Tuesdays, Tuesday morning, I

1:41:11

got this pack, a dermatology abiology dozo, allergy, meteorology nephrology care bears.

1:41:34

So we're into 2021 it's into twenty twenty one. It's spring. And I hope that this year you have a spring in your and I hope that this year you have a spring in your step. If you need a little help with that, perhaps all birds tree runners can help. I just got a pair of them and they are so squishy and cozy and going light and airy. They're so cool They're so cool looking and I have only automatic words for them. Like, boy, you're young. wall. They're They're great. This is my first pair of Allbirds and I really like This is my first pair of Allbirds and I really like them. The tree runners are also made with eucalyptus uppers. What? And cushy sugar cane based sweet foam soles. And they have a light and breezy feeling super comfortable, also better footprint than traditional and they have a light and breezy feeling. Super comfortable, also better footprint than additional synthetics. Allbirds runners are also a carbon neutral product. So I'm digging so I'm digging it. So this spring, stay light and breezy with the allbirds Tree runner. You can find your [email protected] You can find your pair at allbirds dot com today. So maybe you need to hire someone for your maybe you need to hire someone for your company. Congratulations, you're expanding, but also hiring someone can be Congratulations, you're expanding, but also, hiring someone can be daunting. So perhaps you need a hiring partner who helps make your life So perhaps you need a hiring partner who helps make your life easier. You need indeed, You need indeed. indeed. It's as easy as one, two, three post screen and interview, you do it all it's as easy as 123, post, screen, and interview. You do it all through Indeed. They give you a quality shortlist of candidates whose resumes on indeed match your job They give you a quality shortlist of candidates whose resumes on indeed match your job description and it's faster. You only pay for the candidates that meet the must have qualifications that you set, and then you can schedule and complete video interviews on your indeed dashboard, all in one place, which is so You only pay for the candidates that me that must have qualifications that you set. And then you can schedule and complete video interviews on your Indeed dashboard, all in one place, which is so cool. They also have indeed skills tests you can choose from. They have 130 skills tests, or you can add your They have a hundred and thirty skills tests or you can add your own. And according to Telenet, indeed delivers four times more hires than all other job sites combined. So if you're hiring someone, indeed. There's place to go. You can get started right now with a free seventy five dollars sponsored job credit to upgrade your job post at indeed dot com slash allergies. So that is a seventy five dollar credit at indeed dot com slash allergies. Once again, indeed dot com. Slash allergies, and the offer is valid through June 30th. So we get on that terms and conditions apply, So get on that. Terms and conditions apply. Oh, Hey, it's your internet friend who calls herself your dad, who said that this second bear's episode was going to come out as a midweek bonus episode, just for funsies and then started putting it hey. It's your Internet friend who calls herself your dad who said that this second bears episode was gonna come out as a midweek bonus episode. Just for funzy's. And then started putting it together, and it's like thirty seven thousand clips from six different additional Ursinologists. And I was like, what's what's even in my school? Is it just a cauliflower? Because no, that's not possible. So it's coming out as a part 2, Allie Ward. Back with another episode of allergies about bears. Fucking hell, yeah, bears, man. Part 2, of bears. So in episode one of Ursinology, we asked Chris Morgan, what bear conventions are like. And in this part 2, you can kind of pretend that you're hanging out around a campfire with a half a dozen human beings who have dedicated their lives to helping and understanding bears. How lucky were we, except for me, who did not know how to put this many interviews together, and who almost started crying in a hotel room this week going, what was I thinking? But it's so fun that it turned out great. Also, it's divided into chapters. I'm getting it to that in a second. But first, thank you to everyone on Patreon at patreon dot com slash alagies for all of these questions that we just continue every week to blog at x efforts. And to everyone who reviews and rates apologies because I read every single one of them when I feel like I have made a terrible decision to make a clip show, and you remind me to keep going such as K Jackson 2 who says, a friend played the Scorpion episode on a backpacking trip and I'm hooked, I went to school for flu geomorphology. And we are a fun bunch. Just Google parachuting beavers. You're welcome. K Jackson 0529I did Google parachuting beavers. I am curious. I do need to hear more about how people toss beavers at a place for science. But bears before beavers. Let's get into it. Okay. Get ready to meet. Six more bear experts. First West First, Wes Larsen, my pronouns are he, Wes Larson, a world renowned a world renowned earth. Sinologist who has been studying these creatures since 2 been studying these creatures since two thousand eleven, you may have seen him in national geographic, CNN, Altzira, or on Instagram at Grizzly or he'd dazzles hundred and twenty six thousand wildlife loving followers with pictures of bears. You'll also meet. My name is Danielle Rivet, and my pronouns are she and her. Daniel revet who studied zoology for Rivet, who studied zoology for her bachelors, researched bare diets for her and is now a PhD candidate at the University of Saskatchewan mindblowing polar bear movement. Also joining us is My name is Tsalani. My pronouns. Are he him celebrated wildlife photographer to Salani Lasseter who also partnered with Nat geo to photograph carnival ecologists, are Thea. Celebrated wildlife photographer, 2 Lassiter, who also partnered with Nat Geo, to photograph Carnival Dr. Ray Wayne Grant, as she ducked into Bearden's and took data and cuddled cubs. And I have been following Tsalani on Instagram for a while. And if there is someone who can tell you the best way to observe a bear, it's this guy. Other people, I begged to record voice notes into their phone, include Thea Bechshoft. My pronouns are she her. Doctor Tia Bekshaft, who studied polar bears for fifteen years, taking her all over the Arctic in places Greenland and Russia. She's also the author of the popular Facebook page, Polarberg Questions. So yes, she's gonna answer yours, my friends. As is Drew Hamilton, my pronouns are he and him. Drew Hamilton, an Alaskan born bear spotting guide and wildlife photographer who has spent twenty years looking at bears He's now based in Alaska and is such a joy when it comes to chatting about these important animals. He also takes incredible pictures. And lastly, My name is Lana turn yellow, the absolutely name is Ciarniello, the absolutely wonderful doctor. Lana Churniello, a wildlife consultant Ursinologists and art conservationists to study the human bear interactions for her. Master's at the university of Calgary and bear habitat selection, and bear habitats selection for her PhD at the university of at the University of Calgary and bear habitat selection and bear habitat selection for her PhD at the University of Alberta. She is amazing and such a champion for the bears What a group? Y'all had so many questions that Chris Morgan and I just did not have time to answer, so I sent them off to these great bear folks. Who recorded them and sent them back. And we sliced and diced and put them into chapters for you, starting with chapter one. Pairs on film, to get some reactions from personologist to bears in the media. Now, there's a total of five chapters in this episode addressing everything from bare locomotion 2 mating habits, polar bear fur, conservation tactics, itchy butts, pointy bits, campsite protocol, barebells, singing 2 singing at bears, and whether or not we should all move to Antarctica. With all the world's bears for one big slipper party. So let's dive in with chapter one, bears on film. Aeology's listeners. My name is Wes Larsen. My pronouns are he, him. And so far in my career, worked with polar bears, black bears, and sloth bears most sleep. Okay. So I figured I'll get into these questions. Chris Brewer asked bears, beats or battle star Galactica, And Kate stomp said this question right here. So we got an office fan out there obviously. Beatts, you know, I could take him or leave him, battle royale act. Never got too into it. I watched a little bit, so I'm definitely gonna go with bears. K. Ainsley Boran Remember that documentary called Grizzly Man. He was on Kodiak Island where the subspecies Kodiak Brown Bear lives. Did the bears really get used to his presence and not attack? Yeah. I do remember that documentary. I actually got to speak with the director of that documentary. We're a Herzog. And, yeah, it's really great. They did a great job on They did a great job on that. Thea actually was in Katmai, which is close to Kodiak. It's right across the water from Kodiak. And as far as whether or not the bears really got used to his presence. They did habituate 2 his presence. They started just to kind of accept him. Those bears are really well fed. They have lots salmon streams. They have really good food sources. So they're not very territorial. They're not very aggressive. Those are the kind of bears that someone can be in close kind of proximity to them like that. You couldn't do that with an interior grizzly bear, but with those big coastal brown bears, you can. But I mean, Lassiter a while, one of them ended up deciding to kill and eat him. So after a while, you're gonna come across bear that maybe decides you're a meal or doesn't like you or whatever. It's just a matter of time. I wasn't sure if I was gonna leave this story in because it's so sad and tragic, and his methods of bare interaction were certainly controversial. But so many of you asked about Ursinologists that I wanted to hear straight from a least one on it. So My heart goes out to anyone who has been affected by any perilous bear encounter. We'll talk more about how to keep you and the bears both safe in the episode. First, let's meet Danielle and gossip about dogs. Hi there. My name is Danielle Rivet, and my pronouns are she and her. I currently work with polar bears in the western Hudson Bay area, specifically near Churchill and in Waftis National Park in Manitoba, Canada for my current pH project at the University of Saskatchewan. But I've also worked with North American Brown Beres, more commonly known as Grizzly Beres, while I was doing my master's degree at Washington State University. It looks like Hope had a very important question and that is did you vote in Fat Bear Week and if So which bear was your favorite? Did seven forty seven deserve the victory? Well, I always participate in fat bear week, but for people who don't know, fat bear week is kinda like a march madness competition for bears that feed on the salmon at Brooks Falls. And it is so much fun to pay attention to you and and follow this particular competition. It happens every It happens every year. I think for the last seven years originally organized, I believe by Mike Fitz, who was a ranger at Katmai for I think, for the last seven years originally organized, I believe, by Mike Fitz who was a ranger at Katmai for a while, and basically what it is, is they take pictures of the bearers at the beginning of season after everybody has just come out of hibernation. And then they take pictures again at the end of the season when bears have been feeding on the salmon and they've really been packing on those pounds. And they just look like big bear balloons, and it is the funniest thing in the world. These bears are so fat. I have never seen fatter bears it's unreal. I guess I've seen some fat bears like Azus, but this just really blows Thea out of the water. It's insane how fat these bears are. But, yes, I participate in Fat Bear Week. It's on Twitter and on Facebook, you vote I believe by going on Facebook and liking particular photos that are set up in the brackets, depending on who you think is the fattest bear in that particular bracket. And then the one with the most votes advances to the next round. And this past year for twenty twenty, seven forty seven was the winner. I don't know that seven forty seven is my favorite bear for fat bear week. I'm a pretty big fan of Holly, but Holly got knocked out pretty early after I believe the second round for her. She got knocked out by chunk. And then chunk was ultimately the bearer that went up against seven forty seven at the end of the competition. Whether seven forty seven deserved that victory or not, It's very debatable. I mean, we all have our favorites. Right? I wouldn't have voted for him, but he's a big bear. I believe the Rangers said that last last year. So twenty nineteen, they estimated his weight at fourteen hundred pounds and that they thought he was bigger this past year. So bigger than 1400 pounds in so bigger than fourteen hundred pounds. In twenty twenty. That is a massive brown bear. And it's so cool because these bears can only get that fat. By being on that salmon stream right there. So it's a really cool ecosystem, super fun and exciting competition to participate in. Just one of the cooler things that you can do on social Thea, and you can get on those web cams, I believe, on explore dot org. And see a lot of the same bears that are there at Brooks Falls, eating salmon, sitting in the water, and kind of involved just hanging out together looking for fish and waiting for their bellies to be full and for them to be super fat and ready to go into hibernation. Patreon Jane Ennis asked this next one, can you watch that Revenant scene without wanting to stay inside forever? Is that a realistic bear attack? I know attacks are very rare, but damn. That was really something else to watch. And to answer it, is the wonderful 2 who you should all follow on Instagram immediately. Just pull it up right now. Tsalani, TSALANI. My name is Tislani. My pronouns are he him and I work with black and grizzly bears in the Western United My pronouns are he, him. And I work with black and grizzly bears in the western United States, Revenant scene, very realistic bear scene, just given what we know about bear attacks, given how we've seen bears attack their prey or what they do in fights, I think that that's a very realistic attack. When the character shot the bear with a rifle, the bear got more aggressive, you know, it takes a pretty big rifle, a pretty big shot to take down a bear. And if you're not gonna hit it just right, all you're gonna do is piss off the bear. And it's gonna do more to try to take you out. The way he shook them side to side, Grisley's definitely do that. We've seen that in the wild. Where they jump up and down on you to to crush you or or break into things. I think that was very a very nice scene, very scary, but very nice. I really did appreciate it. And I think that scene actually did some good for bears. I think I think, you know, we'll we'll rely less in Hollywood on, you know, real bears that people are training or people are using for Hollywood, and it shows that you could actually get a very realistic bear in, like, a CGI. So I really appreciated that scene. Just wanna stress one thing. It's very important that you educate yourself and your bear wear, if you live in a place with bears or if you're visiting a place with bears, the more knowledgeable you are, the more confident you'll be in bear territory, unless you have to fear as a conservationist. I wanna turn people's fear of bears into respect for bears, respect their capabilities, respect nature and respect 2 role that bears play in our ecosystem. This next question is from Franchesca Ortiz. First time question, asker. If all general bear species fought, which one would win and why this is a pretty easy one in general, polar bear is the largest bear species standing at like 10 feet tall If all general bear species fought, which one would win and why? This is pretty easy one. In general, polar bear is the largest bear species standing at, like, ten feet tall. Grizzly the big coating at Grizzly's in Alaska would stand probably eight or nine feet. They don't meet too much, but I guess if if they were to fight, if you had a big grizzly and smaller polar bear, maybe the Grizzly would win. But in general, I think the polar bear this is this is a pretty easy one. Nothing's gonna touch a polar bear. They've got larger pause. They've got sharper teeth. I don't think Grizzly is gonna be able to take one. Okay. But what if there was species on species action that was not fighting. So we have an expert for that. My name is Tia My pronouns are she, her, and I work with polar bears. Let's dive into some polar bear questions. From Anna DuWiggur. Are grizzly bear slash polo bear hybrids real? And if so, is this because of climate change? Well, yes and no, So hybrids have always existed to some extent. But now we are seeing that polar bears in some areas are spending more time on the short because the CIS is missing for longer periods time. And we're also seeing that the grizzlies or the brown bears are moving further north, simply because they can find food for a longer period of time over the year. And so we do see more interactions between the two species, and sometimes those interactions end up with a mating and with cups, hybrid cups. Stephanie Broach Lassiter, is it a pissley or a growler? So I mean, really that's up to you, whichever word you like better, piss me your growler. But unofficially, it's a growl up air if the sire so that it's if the father is a Grizzly bear or brown bear and it's a pissy bear if the father is a polar bear. So I would say that the hybrids that we know of, they are usually a grower bears. Because it's usually a polar bear female and then a brown bear male. I really apologize if I'm missing these names up royally, but yeah, I hope it works. You're doing great. We love you. Now if this were American Life episode, I would come in, I were glassy like and say, Today on our radio program, we've arrived in act 2, act two, fuzzy buzzy. Let's get for real. You remember 2? Weird bear facts. Black bears are not all black. Most people don't understand this. But they come in various colors, black, brown, golden, blonde. There's even a bluish tinted black bear. There's even a a whitish bear called the spirit bear, which is like shiny white. You can find that up in Canada and British Columbia. So I guess that's kind of a weird bear fact, and most people have no idea that black bears aren't always black. Also here with us is Drew Hamilton, an Alaskan guide, and bare spotter, who himself has a russet kind of fisherman, wilderness beard Thea appears to get glimmering icy crystals on it in the field. My name is Drew Hamilton. My pronouns are he and him, and I work with Brown Beers in Alaska and Polar Beers in Canada. So before I get into it, I think I need to make the distinction for what is a brown bear. Here in Alaska, it's a geographic designation. So if you boil a brown bear, a grizzly bear, and a Kodiak bear, all down to their scientific name. It's Ursus Arctis. And It breaks down geographically. A bear that's found on the coast and has access to salmon is called brown bear. If that bear is found up in the interior of Alaska, say around Denali National Park, doesn't have access to salmon. It's called a grizzly bear. And if that bears on Kodiak Island, well, that's Kodiak bear. Rebekah's where it asks. Blue polar bears is that a thing. So sometimes polar bears can be green, but I've never heard of blue polar bears. So kept in captivity in, you know, more humid parts of the world, they can actually get, like, a green tinge to them. Which is a result of algae growing inside of their hair. And yeah, it looks kind of strange. But usually it can be relatively easily cured by soaking the bears repeatedly in salt water because this kills the algae. I mean, you could consider polar bears blue partially, but that would be their tongue. Sometimes, if you see a polar bear tongue, it kinda looks bluish. Polar bears are born with a pink tongue, which a couple of months, starts to become modeled with black. And the tongue of adult polar bears varies in color. Some animals still have a lot of mindblowing, Some are nearly all or totally black, and some have this mix of pink and black that can actually look bluish. Thea roof of a polar bear's mouth and its inside cheeks are also dark in colors. And sometimes, you will see pictures of adult polar bears with very blue or even pink tongues and cheeks. And these are rugs and the inside of the mouse is made of plastic. So not really a real polar bear mouth or tongue. As far as I know, there is no specific echologer reason for polar bear tongues to be modeled this dark color that they often are. And my best guess is that it may be genetically linked to polar bear skin color, which also goes from being pink to being black over the course of a few months. At the same time, that the ton color is changing. Elisa Froles said I read about the fact that polar bear hair are not white but transparent and that their skin is black and I freaked out thinking about it. It's like bears are covered with those fiber optic like bears are covered with those fiber optic filaments. Why is it better to have transparent than white hair? Actually, transparent and white hair are basically the same thing because the color of your hair is determined by how much pigment is in there, how much melanin is in your hair. And so the more melanin you have, the more pigment you have in your hair, the darker your hair is, Now, gray hair. Our hair turns gray because we have a gradual loss of this pigment, and so once the hair is completely white, It's because there simply is no more pigment in it. So if your hair is completely white, it's basically the same as polar bear hair. So white hair, transparent hair, same thing. One of the very persistent myths about polar bear hair is that they're completely hollow which is not entirely the case. So, polar bears have two types of hair. There's the guard hair, the longer ones on top. And then there are the woolen hairs underneath that are more curly and softer and good at holding in the heat. And both of these types of hair are transparent, so they're without pigment, and they're mostly hollow. But they have this air filled core where it's multiple chambers one after the other down through the hair strand. And it's because of these properties that pull up their hair scatter and reflect all visible lengths of light and that makes them appear white to the human eye. Now with regard to the skin, poliviris are actually born with pink skin, but after a couple of months, while they're in the den with their mom, the cub skin turns permanently black. And you can see this on the bears' nose, on its lips, and under the footpaths. And there are quite a few theories that have been suggested over the years as to why this is, but the prevailing one is that the skin is black in order to absorb a maximum of heat from the sun, but also to aid in protecting the animal against UV radiation. Because generally speaking, darker skin or rather higher levels of the pigment melanin in the skin, have been found to provide better protection against the sun's UV rays. And this just goes for a wide range of organisms from humans to blue whales. So whichever is true, no albino bears have been reported to date, which could indicate the importance of having black skin in this species. Catherine's girlfriend wants to know what polar bear smell like. I actually wondered the same myself for years And so the first time I was close to sedated polar bear, I buried my face in its fur to take a good whiff. And I can tell you that unlike, for example, dogs and cats and horses and sheep, The smell of polar bear is incredibly subtle. If I were to compare it to anything, I think it would be, imagine you've been going for a long walk along the ocean side on a really windy day. So smell of your clean, non perfumed mindblowing hair when you come back inside is kind of the closest I can come to what it smells like. There are a number of reasons why polar bears don't have a very strong smell. First of all, most polar bears spend their entire lives on the sea ice, which is a very neutral smelling environment with water and ice and snow. But also and this is actually quite important. Polar bears don't have territories to defend like most other carnivores do. And so polar bears don't meet this this strong scent to mark their particular area. Also, all of this being said, I am sure that a wet polar bear will likely have a slightly more noticeable smell than a dry bear and a polar bear that's in the middle of eating a seal will smell strongly of the prey. So off the seals fat and blood. Also, a barrier that is forced to spend its summer on land instead of on the sea ice, may smell somewhat of wet peat, berries, fermented algae. I also imagine that a polar bear with a set stomach or an adult female who has spent the past three months in the den with her newborn cubs may well have a somewhat stronger smell. We've arrived at chapter Bear behavior. How do bears bear to other bears? Y'all cared. And asked a lot of questions. And we have answers. Well, one incredible Ursinologists with over twenty five years of experience by the name of Dr. Lana does. My name is Lana and I primarily am working right now with Grizzly bears, but I also work with black bears. I am also the cochair of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's Bear Specialist Groups, Human Bear Conflict Expert Thea, And in that rule, I work with seven of the eight bear species worldwide. So all species except polar bears because they have their own expert team. So Tammy have we been able to recognize or identify a language in bears? So answer to that question is absolutely, bears have a language. Bear language is more spoken with their body and their movements. So how they face each other, whether they look each other straight in the eyes, whether they have their head down or their head up, all of those are how bears are talking to each other. So Thea subtle movements in their body language. Bears also can vocalize. So they will tell you they will clack their jaws and they will tell you things like back off. Stay away. Get away from me. So not only do they have their body movement language, they can vocalize as well although that is a bit less common. They often speak to each other with their body language. Does Wes Larson, aka Chris Kids, speak bear? Thea confirmed that their vocalizations can speak volumes. They definitely use a lot of different vocalizations for communication between themselves, between other species. If you, for example, come upon a black bear in the woods and it's not happy with you, it's gonna make like noise or it's gonna crack its jaws at you. So they definitely vocalize a lot. Lana also chimes in about some very on brand behavior. So Avery asked, we all know that they're the cutest when they're itching their backs on trees, but the question remains, why are they so itchy? Avery interesting. You should ask that this is exactly what I am working on right at this moment is them scratching their backs on you should ask that. This is exactly what I am working on right at this moment. Is them scratching their backs on trees. So, bears do this for number of reasons and we believe it is a method of communication between bears. Sometimes on their way to the tree, you'll see them take their foot pads, put them in a depression, and then it's kinda called cowboy. They move them around. Why do they do that? Well, they have scent glands. They have scent glands in their feet, and that releases the scent into those marks. Then they will mark all the way up to the tree, the marked Thea, and they will either smell up and down that tree or investigate it. Smelling who's been there, what they've been doing, Thea they will stand up or even stay quadripetal on on all four feet and they will itch their shoulder or they will itch their back on that Thea. Again, releasing the sense from the glands. Now, other bears can use that. It's a method of communication between them. So a female may come up, she might have really young Cubs and she can go up to that tree and she will smell up and down and she may make a So a female may come up and she might have really young cubs and she can go up to that tree and she will smell up and down and she may make a decision. Hmm. A big adult male just rubbed on that A big adult male just rubbed on that tree. That big adult male has a possibility of killing these little cubs I have. I'm not gonna go that way and she'll turn around and go another way. A paper just came out that talked about it being a dating calling card. So those who are itching on those trees more or scratching the bat more, maybe getting mates from that. So basically, it's a method of communication between bears. But yes, you're Avery, it also feels good. And gets rid of some of the hair and some of that itch. We have another question on Mark Trees, and it says, Do all bears do the itchy fur dance that we see in those? Gipps the answer to that is yes, indeed all bears gifs? The answer to that is yes, indeed, all bears do. So some bears may mark more than others, and that can be based on if it's the breeding season, if there are these big, large adult males, they may be doing more marking, but absolutely all bears mark trees. I have literally thousands of videos of it going right from our newborn Cubs of the Year, they're called, or those those bears that have not yet reached their first birthday marking trees all the way up to fifteen hundred pound males marking trees. All bears marked trees and they're talking to each other pretty much as they do so. They're leaving their calling card. Bearded bear dude through echoes that Just like me dancing after a few white wines at a wedding, bears can also use their body as an instrument. They've got impressively complex conservationists mostly done through body posturing, body positioning. There are some vocalizations involved but it's very subtle body postures that can tell you exactly. What's on a bear's what's on bear's mind. BellaTressa asked I heard somewhere that bears greed for their loved ones. Is this true? And what are the social structures of bear communities? Bears do have emotions They're probably not as complex as human emotions. I don't know that I'd be willing to say that bears specifically grieve, but they definitely feel lost, they definitely feel attachment. So if you were to boil the different things that make grief, bears can feel those maybe independently, but I wouldn't necessarily assign this specific human emotion of Rivet to something bears do. And as to what are the social structures of bear communities that is an readably complex answer. So it kinda depends on the bears and where they're located. On the coasts of the Alaska Peninsula, CATMINE National Park, McNeil River State Game Sanctuary. You have incredibly high densities of bears, and those bears are forced to interact with each other frequently. And so they have actually developed complex social structures that are based on a rank and hierarchy system. And people tend to think that that's based on how big a bear is, but it's really based on their attitude. So the alpha bear, the most dominant bear in an Thea, isn't necessarily the biggest bear in the area. It's the bear that has the attitude to keep all the other bears in check. Now Thea family groups will tend to stick together for almost two and a half, three and a half, four and a half years. The Cubs will stay with mom. And the independent bears, the kind of teenage males and females that are independent will sometimes pile around together for number of years particularly if their siblings and grew up with mom together. They'll after they leave mom, they'll still stick around. And then you've got this demographic of large male, older bears that are are fairly independent. But there are few places where these bears come together to feed. You think of the most famous being Brooks Falls and Cat my National Park or McNeil Falls in McNeil River State Game Sanctuary. And you get to see these amazing interactions between bears. I always say that one day at McNeil River is like a lifetime of studying bears. Because you can see forty, fifty, sixty, seventy bears at one time. Most bears I've seen in one stretch of river at McNeil was seventy eight in a quarter mile stretch of river. And so just sitting there, you see all these different behaviors and all these different social interactions just kind of stack one on top of one another. And so you'll you'll learn real quick. Okay. Aside from verapalusa, what are smaller group dynamics like? Do bears ever have step dads? Do they ever call home and see how their mom is doing? Lana has details. Tammy also asked 2 families stay together or nearby one another as adults. So that's an interesting question. Okay? For bears? The father has no investment in the offspring, so he doesn't stay around at all. But for the mother, absolutely, she raises her young, and then it all depends if those young are male or female. If you're a female, you are allowed to have part of your mother's home range. So when we look at the genetics of female bears, It acts as a matriarch. We've got your, like, matriarch in the in the middle and then that rings out into these females who are their offspring. As it goes down through the generations. Mails, however, are made to disperse. The mother will chase off her mail offspring when they reach the age of dispersal and she'll make them go away and she'll keep after them. They will stay in that area for a while while they grow up. But then, once they get older, they will disperse quite long distances. So we see this quite a bit when we see Grizzly COMING OVER TO WHERE I LIVE ON VANCOUVER IN CANADA. PEOPLE WILL BE SHOCKED, BUT IT'S NOT SHOCKING AT ALL. Mail bears disperse. They go out to look for their own territories, and they do this to avoid mindblowing, to not to breed with their siblings, so tries to maintain that genetic line. So Ashley if it's true that bears have social structure. Yes, it's absolutely true that bears have social structure. So your big adult males, they are your most dominant bears, they get the best feeding spot they get access to the best females for breeding. They will fight each other for females for breeding. So there is definitely a social structure. That goes from your big Revenant males down to your younger, just the ones you've dispersed. Right? They're gonna be your most subordinate bears. Let's get Ph. D. Candidate and longtime Bearfan Ciarniello to address some Toddry Bear Sex gossip. By the way, if you have a dick, there's a chance it's about the same size as polar bears or bigger. They have like six inch pickles. Although some research says that it averages seven point three inches, but I think that the research was done by polar bears. Anyway, bare boning. Since they have an actual bone called a baculum. Let's get into their romantic lives. My next question looks like it's from Megan next question looks like it's from Meghan Burnett 2 Reishavitch. I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly. But Meghan asks, what is bear reproduction like? And when do they mate? Bear reproduction is one of those topics that's actually super fascinating to me. They're one of the least productive mammals in North America, so it takes them a long time to reach sexual maturity and then to have babies and then for those babies to grow up and then also reach sexual maturity and start breeding on their own. So if you just think about taking, like, one male and one female bear and say they reach sexual maturity as soon as they can, and then they have their own offspring and the offspring survive to do the same. It would probably take about ten years for the population to go from two bears to fifteen bears. Very impressive by human standards. That would be off the charts. But somewhere, there's a pair of rats. Just leaving the rat off it fares. Because rats could grow a family to half a billion descendants in just three years. So listen to the rodentology episode with Bobby Corrigan for more dazzling rat facts. Because, wow, can they make rats? Okay. But back to bears. Bears typically are pretty solitary. They're usually only found together when it's a mom with cubs or during the mating season. So average breeding age for these bears is somewhere around three to five years. And just because they reached sexual maturity doesn't necessarily mean that they're actually going to be breeding that year. Right? Especially males males might be capable of breeding at three or four years of age, but they usually don't get the chance to because there's a whole lot of competition from the bigger, older male bears out there. And it's the female that kind of chooses what's going on. Right? He doesn't have a whole lot of say. Thea just kind of goes around into these different territories looking for a female that he can breed with. But the larger bears typically in the population are the ones that tend to be the most prolific breeders, if you will. Their breeding season usually is in the spring and summer, starts in May and usually Lassiter until early July. Most of the breeding season I would say probably occurs in June for brown and black bears in North America. I believe it might be a little bit earlier for polar bears because at least the polar bears eye research in the Western Hudson Bay population, their breeding season occurs entirely on ice. So ice is really important for polar bears, not only because of their access to food, but because really important life history events like the breeding season occur on ice. But typically, like I said, breeding seasons in the spring for these bears, and males will go around to different territories looking for whatever females they can They'll compete with other males for access to those females. And it just kinda goes from there, I guess. It's like I've seen conservationists bears before is a little awkward. Kinda looks just like two really big dogs doing what dogs do, but you know, they breed and then they have their cubs born over the winter during a hibernation period and the cycle starts all over. Merrell start if bears give birth while hibernating. So this is really interesting, but yes, they actually do give birth while they're in bear cubs in North America are born typically in January or February, while mom is still in the den for hibernation. And when these cubs are born, they're completely helpless. They're blind. They don't have a whole lot of fur, but they are furred. They don't really have much going on for teeth in their mouths. And they're not really capable of moving around a whole lot on their own. So they are going to depend on mom for almost everything that they need, which would include things like getting food. So they're going to have to nurse for mom for the duration of the hibernation period. And they actually won't even come out of the den with mom until sometime in late March or early April. So later in the spring than bears that would be emerging from hibernation without cubs. And Monmouth usually have anywhere from one to four cubs typically. She could have more, but two is usually the most common. And those cubs are born really small. They're like the size of a potato pretty much when they're first born. But by the time they're getting ready to go back into hibernation their first year, they can be as much as eighty pounds. So there's a whole lot of growing that goes on during that first season. And it's really important to remember that even though mom is in hibernation when she's giving birth to these babies, she's not actually asleep. So it's not like she just wakes up surprised in the spring, and she's like, oh, no, I've got babies that I have to take care of. Like, She's completely aware of what's going on the entire time because she has to take care of them and provide warmth and you know, nurse them and things like Thea. But it's important also to remember that nursing and lactating is really energetically expensive for these bears. And because they're in hibernation, they haven't eaten in a long time. They haven't had anything to drink. And they do have a much lower metabolic rate. Than they would normally during the active season. Their body temperature drops during hibernation, though not quite as much as other animals that hibernate. And so they're basically just kind of working off reserves of what they have stored up from the previous year before they went into the bin. And so that's what mom is using. She's taking stuff from these fat stores that she's accumulated and putting that into making milk for her babies. And taking care of her babies. She just has to be really careful that she's not expending a whole lot of energy. So she's still kind of in that hibernation phase. But she's not actually asleep while she's giving birth and taking care of her cubs. My next question is from Natalie Ashburner Wright. And not only wants to know if there are any kinds of bears that are mostly monogamous. I don't think so. My experience is mainly with brown bears and polar bears all in North America, so I'm not entirely sure what would be going on with bearers like sunbearers or pandas or asiatic black bearers or spectacle bearers or anything like that. But it's my understanding that bears in general are not monogamous at all. Male bears are very promiscuous. They'll find as many females as they can to breed with because the imperative part for them is to just get out there and get those genes spread out into the gene pool. They want the babies to be theirs, so it doesn't really matter to them how many females they breed with. But in addition, female bears actually have more than one mating partner in a breeding season as well. And there could be, you know, a few different reasons behind that. But one of the reasons that I'm most familiar with, at least in North America, and for brown barriers that are in Europe, is that there seems to be a pretty high chance sometimes of larger male bears coming back into territories and killing cubs in order to bring females into estras so that they can breed with them again. A female bear won't breed with a male if she still has cubs that are with her. And like I said before, those cubs typically stay with mom for the first couple years, maybe three or four years depending on how clingy they might be or what they might need. But males won't breed with females that already have cubs. Like females won't, they just won't participate. So the only way that a male can make that work in his favor is to eliminate the cubs. And so what he'll do is he'll come in and he'll kill the cubs. And that brings the female back into Estrace during the breeding season so that he can meet with her and her next set of cubs will be hit. Now doesn't really work super well for maintaining populations and obviously the female wants her cubs to survive. As well. So what the girls kind of all figured out to do was to go out and breed with bunch of different males. Because males will remember essentially who they've made it with during that particular breeding season. And if there's a possibility that those cubs are his, he is significantly less likely to come back into that territory later and kill those bears. Just because it might already be his genes that are there and not somebody else's. So the answer to that question is no. I don't know of any bears that are mostly monogamous. I think most species, if not all of them, are rather promiscuous Thea they have multiple mating partners within a single breeding season. My next question says, Whoa. Please talk about bears reabsorbing embryos. Is this more common in bears that live in closer contact with humans? And that question is from Ira Gray. This is actually one of the most fascinating things about bear reproduction. I think This is just completely blow in my mind every time I I think about it and talk about it, but bears do this really crazy thing that's called delayed implantation. And basically, what that means is, bears will have their breeding season in spring or earlier in the year. So like I said, sometime we may in July typically, and the embryo will be fertilized, but it doesn't actually implant in the uterine lining. It just kind of hangs out there. I'm not really sure what's going on or like how that actually works, but it just hangs out. And stays there until it gets a lot closer to when the female starts thinking about going into hibernation. And what happens is females that or at least in brown bears, females that don't have at least twenty percent body fat when they go into hibernation will not reproduce. So if the conditions and resources have just been not super great. She can't find enough food. She's not overly fat when she's getting ready to go into hibernation. She'll actually reabsorb that embryo. As if it never happened because she knows that she doesn't have enough resources to provide for any cubs that she would produce during that hibernation period. It would actually be super unbeneficial for her to have those cubs because she might end up starving herself and she would most likely lose any babies that she would have. So in a way, females are actually able to decide whether or not they're ready to reproduce. Whether or not they have enough resources, whether or not they're fat enough to support nursing and lactating through an entire hibernation period is so fascinating to me. I don't understand how it works. But that's basically what they do. So they breed in spring and they don't actually get pregnant per se. Until probably November when they go into their den. So there's this whole period of time where the embryo is just kind of floating around in there hanging out. And then before they go into hibernation, that's when they decide yes, I can reproduce or no, I can't. So either the embryo will be reabsorbed or it will implant in the uterine lining. And when the female actually becomes pregnant, that's, like I said, probably somewhere around November. And then she gives birth in January or February. So she's actually pregnant for a very short period of time considering Whether or not this is more common in bears that live in closer contact with humans, I'm not necessarily sure. 2 me, it's more of a function of resource availability and whether or not the female thinks that she has enough fat accumulation. So in some circumstances, I could see that being beneficial to be closer to humans because some of those bears might be getting into dumps or other anthropogenic food sources, maybe feeding on things that they're not supposed to necessarily, but they might be fatter bears. So maybe in that particular case, they'd be less likely to reabsorb an embryo because they have a lot of resources and they're very fat. In other circumstances, I guess it might be the opposite. Right? If you have a bear that is close to people and that's stressing them out, and they feel like they can't get enough access to resources than reabsorbing that embryo because she's not fat enough when she gets ready to go into hibernation. Might be the best option for her. So I think of it more as a function of resource availability and fatness or like body fat rather than how close the bear is in contact with humans. So many cocktail party facts. This weird bonus, not bonus episode is delivering, and we'll continue to. After few words about sponsors who making it possible to donate to, not one, but six charities this week, and West chose the Grizzly Bear Foundation, which is dedicated to the long term welfare of the Grizzly Bear North America Thea chose polar bears international dot org. Atlanta asked that hers go to Northern Lights wildlife shelter in Smithers BC as they are holding orphan grizzly bear cubs that she will be releasing this June as part of Project rewild, and that is wildlife shelter dot com. Drew Hamilton directed his towards Friends of mcneil Rivet dot org, and Danielle's is going to Idaho Black Bear Rehab. And will donate to Slany's Choice as well. There are links to each of those in the show notes. And if you are so moved, toss a few bucks their way. I'm sure they do appreciate it. But if you can't, That's okay because we did. Thanks to Thea spot. Hey, Do you like you like books? How's that for a pickup line? You can use that for free, but do you actually like books? I I do. 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Shockingly the change over to a new year did not magically solve all of our problems who knew, but one sponsor of the show that I love is better help online counseling, which I myself Shockingly, the change over to a new year did not magically solve all of our problems. Who knew? But one sponsor of the show that I love is Better Help Online Counseling, which I myself use. It's helped me so It's helped me so much. My counselor My rules. I love I love her. And because they know that I like getting a little funky with my And because they know that I like getting a little funky with my ads. They said it was okay to interview one of their counselors and ask her about they said it was okay to interview one of their counselors and ask her about therapy. So instead of an ad read, they're letting me just do a little mid episode mental health check-in with Hessu Joe, who is So instead of an cat read, they're letting me just do a little mid episode mental health check-in. With Hessu Joe, who is a May say, and I asked a question that I have had myself for awhile. How do we know if we're getting How do we know if we're getting better? I would encourage you to write down what your current issues are. What is it that you're coming to this person What is it that you're coming to this person for? What are the problems you're trying to solve? What are the things about yourself you're trying to discover. Because if you have this somewhere, now you have something to go back to, like refer to, and you're tracking. You're tracking your progress I think a lot of times we're making progress, but we don't realize it. Mhmm. Because we're with ourselves every day. It's like, like, like concrete like like like concrete example. Let's say somebody begins a weight loss let's say somebody begins a weight loss journey. You know, nobody loses like 20 pounds in a You know, nobody loses like twenty pounds in day. So as an example, if you've set out initially to say, like, I think things will be better for me when I'm brushing my teeth every a as an example, if you've set out initially to say, like, I think things will be better for me when I'm brushing my teeth every day. Mhmm. If somebody is having a really hard time with motivation around self hygiene, Maybe that's like what they're looking for. It's like, Oh, I've brushed my teeth like 24 days in a It's like, oh, I've brushed my teeth like twenty four days in a row. Mhmm. I've I haven't done that in like six months. Like, I think that is a sign of progress and like brushing your teeth everyday probably is not something you're going to go out and have a party to I think that is a sign of progress. And, like, brushing your teeth everyday probably is not something you're gonna go out and have party celebrate. But I think it is a huge milestone for self when it's something that you've had such a hard time doing, and it's very personal to to but I think it is a huge milestone for self when it's something that you've had such a hard time doing, and it's very personal to you. It's It's intimate. So give yourself space to celebrate So Rivet yourself space to celebrate yourself even if the progress initially feels like it's not a big deal because it is. Because, you know, before you started this journey, you weren't making any progress at all maybe or even getting worse. And yeah, so I think you just, you just got to pay attention to where you started in order to be able to notice And yeah, so I think you just you just 2 pay attention to where you started in order to be able to notice progress. Cause if you're not paying attention to where it all began, it's very easy to feel like you're not making if you're not paying attention to where it all began, it's very easy to feel like you're not making progress. So that was better health So that was better health counselor. Hessu Joe who gives us permission to seek help and let it out and feel the freedom of reduced anxiety or depression or whatever struggle you're going Hessu Joe, who gives us permission to seek help and let it out and feel the freedom of reduced anxiety or depression whatever struggle you're going through. Now Better Health is also an affordable option. That's something I like about it. But all the diets, hey, you get ten percent off your first month. If like there's a discount code ologies and you can get started today at better if you'd like. There's a discount code allergies. And you can get started today at help. H E L HELP dot com slash allergy. Talk to a wonderful therapist online and got help. I'm so glad that I I'm so glad that I am. Okay. Moving right along to locomotr questions. Chapter four, barely getting by. Let's toss it to true. Hannah Cameron asked, I heard bears can't run downhill. Is this true? Bear's can run downhill. They can run uphill. They can run across hills. I've seen them scale clips that we'd have to be roped up to do safely. They kind of have the ultimate four wheel drive system. Lana? Ronan asks why bears walk plenty great are on their heels like humans? And is there an evolutionary reason for this? Well, Ronan, bears actually spend the vast majority of their time walking quadripetal or on all four feet. So they can stand up and they can walk plenty of grade. Now if they were to be walking plenty of grade, the main reason for this would likely be a significant injury to one of their front paws. So an injury where it's the weight bearing of it would hurts them, so it's easier for them to walk fun2grade on their back feet. I saw this once in a video with a black bear in town and it did have significant injury to its front paw and so it was walking like a human. So why would they stand on their back legs? Okay? One of the main reasons that they stand on their back legs is when they are trying to see something or trying to figure out what something is. So you'll see them stand up on their back legs. And oftentimes with this, they may swing their head slightly from side to side. And what they're trying to do is catch the scent on the wind so that they can identify what it is they think they saw. So for example, sometimes when you're hiking, if you come across a bear, and it's not quite sure what that is. You may see it stand on its hind legs and swing its head from side to side. And then you're gonna hope that you've taken account of your wind direct and that the wind is blowing in such a direction that it's blowing at the bear and therefore it can catch your scent on the wind and to identify you as human. Dr. Thea Bechshoft is technically a marine mammal scientist studying polar bears. Michael PS is asking what makes polar bears such good swimmers? Are all bears as good at swimming as polar bears? And I just don't know it? I need answers. Thanks. So as far as I know, all eight bear species can swim. Though some swim more, and longer than others. Polar Bechshoft, for example, they are experts at doggy paddle swimming. So they use their front paws to paddle with while their hind legs trailed behind them. Kinda steer them like a rudder. And data from satellite colors show that swims of an average of a hundred kilometers or sixty two miles over three days are not unusual. However, the most extreme polar bear swim that we know of was an adult female Thea swam for nine days straight, a total of six eighty seven kilometers or four twenty six miles, which is just mind blowing. However, swimming is very energetically costly for the polar bears. And this swim, this incredible swim actually caused this adult female HER cub, which was with her in the beginning. And it also cost her twenty two percent of her body fat, meaning that although this swim was physically possible for her, it was definitely a challenge. One of the consequences of climate change is that the Arctic Sea ice gets more scattered, more fragmented. There was a new paper published recently showing that polar bears now are actually having to spend three to four times more energy than their grandparents did simply because of the changes that we're seeing to their happy 2 the sea ice, which of course also is their essential hunting habitat. And so they have to spend more energy to be able to catch seals. It's kind of like student loan debt but with your luscious blubber booty getting spent on bullshit that your elders didn't have to deal with. But in this case, It wasn't their fault. So what do they do? Do they just completely fuck off and just go live in the sea? I would. Christopher Blackington. Is asking has any research been done on the possibility of polar bears evolving into full time sea mammals like seals or even sedation they spend so much of their time at Thea, it seems like a natural next step for them. So interesting question. There is no research on this that I know of. Polar bears are marine mammals. It's even in their lab name. They're called versus meratymas or the the sea bear. But that being said, They still rely a lot on their fur for and fur doesn't really keep you warm underwater. There you have to have a good blubber layer instead keep you warm, and also polar bear cubs fare quite poorly in the cold water, which is why of their moms will often, you know, take a long way around on the cis so that they can walk on top of the cis instead of having to have their cubs swim in the water between ice flows. So I don't see it happening anytime soon. But, you know, let's wait a few million years and see where evolution takes the polar bear. Antarctica because that would be like humans moving to a planet literally called no human can live here. Hannah noose asked Why aren't there polar bears in Antarctica? So 2 answer this question, you need to think about how the different continents have moved around during the different geological time periods. And Antarctica has actually been separated from other continents by a vast southern ocean for about forty five million years, which is since before polar bears evolved. The family or seating, which polar bears are a part of, didn't show up evolutionarily until about thirty million years ago. So even if they wanted, pull up heirs just couldn't really get to the end Arctic. Even if they wanted to, the end Arctic is simply just too far away for polar bears. They are excellent swimmers but they would struggle to migrate all the way to the south pole. It's too far. She doesn't see it happening. Now speaking of seeing, actually, While a spectacle bear is one species of South American cloud forest dwelling bear, should all bears be spectacle bears? Drew will feel this part. Ainsley Boraen asked, can they not see well? Do bears need glasses? Bear see about as well as we do. there. A lot of people will tell you, they don't see well, but it's not that their eyesight is poor it's that they it's not their most dominant lot of people will tell you they don't see well, but it's not that their eyesight is poor. It's that they it is not their most dominant sense. They are they're following their sense of smell. Their sense of smell is so much better than ours that they rely on that more than their vision. That being said, I do know a couple of bears that squint a lot and probably could use a set of glasses or maybe some contact lenses to make it easier to catch fish. And Fritz asked, I've read that bears, black bears in the study I read about have some form of color vision. Do we know much about how they see and how about differences in their ability to see color based on species? From everything I've read, yes, bears do see color. It's probably not quite the spectrum we see, but some diminished version of that. One study in particular looked at polar bear's vision and determine that they are missing a portion of the green spectrum, which always begs the question. They have the best seat in the for the northern lights, which oftentimes will appear green to humans. So I always wonder what the northern lights look like to polar bears. By the, by at True's Instagram is linked on my website too, in his photos of the Northern lights are the by, True's Instagram is linked on my website too in his photos of the northern lights are bonkers. So do follow So do follow him. He's a Drew HH. Now, what about a bear following you? Thea addresses polar rumors, possible flimflam. Jesse Hurlberg is asking, do polar bears really hunt people? So not No. CI's losses led to an increase in polar bear sightings in northern coastal communities. Around the Arctic. And even though polar bears sometimes will enter human settlements out of curiosity, Thea main reason they do so is hunger. Because without healthy sea ice platform that they can hunt seals from, polar bears will start looking for food in other places. And quite often, this is to their own detriment. So we are expecting human polyvary encounters to increase as more polar bears are forced to spend longer periods of time onshore and as human activities increase, which course, is both in response to longer ice free seasons. All of that being said, polar bears don't really hunt people. It's a persistent myth, but there is very little reality in it. Now, if you come across a bear that is hungry, or if you somehow managed to surprise it or if you come between a mom and her cubs. That's not a good situation to be in. However, I think the main issue here is that polar bears really are not afraid of very much. They're very opportunistic. They're very curious. And if there's something that looks interesting, they are very likely to want to investigate. And here problem is that even if they're just investigating a person that they come across. Humans are fairly small and squishy, and polar bears are very big and have quite a few pointy bits. Quite a few pointy bits. Anna delecta is asking, so if attacked by a black bear, they say you should fight back. If attacked by a brown bear or gristly, you should play dead. What about polar bears? Well, I mean, if you're attacked, you should definitely fight with everything that you have. For sure, there is no point to playing dead because yeah, polar bears don't mind, you know, sinking their teeth into carcasses, for example, if there's a whale carcass that washed up on a beach. But of course, the best way to avoid polar bear attacks is to be very mindful of your surroundings when you're in polar bear country. And so always have a polar bear guard, always have a lookout when you're in polar bear country, that way you're not surprising a bear and a bear is not surprising you. And everyone is all the happier for it. So bears, they do not like surprise parties. For all of us who love being out in nature and also wanna do right by the bears because they deserve it. Atlanta chimes in with more advice. Okay. So Hannah asks Tax aside, what are the best ways to prevent a bear encounter? So, Hannah, this is really kinda dependent on whether you're gonna go in camping, or whether you're hiking, or whether you're asking me about one of the best ways to prevent an encounter around your home, like moving your bird feeder, So I'm gonna answer it like you're going hiking. So one of the best ways to prevent a bear encounter is first, know where you're going. What time of year you're going there and where you're most likely going to encounter that there. So if you're gonna hike, for example, in very season, through a berry patch that might not be the best way to go. So you want to avoid their critical habitats or avoid places where those bears are most likely to be. Another way we can prevent encounters is to really be aware of our surroundings. So rather than unplugging and plugging in things like earbuds and listening to music, you want to have your ears open, have your eyes open, have your nose open, So you want to make sure there's no really bad smells like a dead animal somewhere that might be attracting a bear or you want to make sure that you're looking all around you and know what's going on. Is there any bear sign? Is there a cat? Do you see? Scott is bear poop? By the way, that's what we call it. Is there skat on the trail? Do you see bunch of birds that could indicate maybe a carcass ahead? Those kind of things? Then when we're hiking ourselves, You asked us singing loudly work. Absolutely. I highly recommend using your voice. Your voice identifies you as humans, and the vast majority of bears know humans and human beings. So singing loudly definitely works. Clapping your hands absolutely works. You've asked here about barebells, I don't recommend barebells. I don't recommend barebells because they don't identify you as human they've mindblowing to be in the same decibel range as birds. And bears are curious, so we don't want to actually attract them. So I actually don't recommend bare bells. Another thing you wanna do, Hannah, is know your line of sight. So if you're coming up to a blind corner, you certainly wanna be me using your your voice and clapping your hands or singing loudly as you say before you're gonna come around that corner, warning the bear that you're coming. We don't want surprise encounters. So we want a really good line of sight around us We wanna keep our eyes open. We wanna keep our ears open and our nose open and bear country. Avoid those surprise encounters and let bears know we're coming. Also, we never ever ever feed bears or provide food for them. So bears can find their own So bears can find their own food. They do not provide human food for them. It really is true that a fed bear becomes a dead bear. Another thing that we 2 keep in mind in preventing a bear encounter is the direction of the wind. So is the wind blowing towards you? Is it caring or your sent down the trail so that the bear can get your scent before it's there. So if you're using your voice and then it picks up your scent and the wind bearers have an excellent sense of smell. So if they can get that scent, bears really do their best to coexist with us and a lot of times they'll just move right off that trail, be silent as they can and allow you to pass by and you might not even know they're there. So So wind direction is really important. Wind direction is also important because I highly recommend that if you're going into Bear country, you carry bear spray. Bear spray is an excellent excellent tool. Should you ever need 2. Should you ever need it? We'd ever want negative encounter with a bear. But should we have one, we want to be prepared for it. You're also really going to want to know your wind direction then, because the last thing you want is to dispense that spray and get it back all over you, because it really does You're also really gonna wanna know your wind direction then because the last thing you want is to dispense that spray and get it back all over you because it really does debilitate you. Sort of incapacitates you for quite a while. West has studied bears all over the world and has not gotten killed one time. So let's hear his advice. Okay. Lucy asked, I've heard mixed reviews on tools like Bearbells, and bear bangers. And a firsthand scene that bear sprayed is basically nothing. What are the best tools for people to have with them when they head out into bear country? Well, Lucy, I'm gonna have to disagree with you on the bare spray thing. I've also seen it firsthand a lot of times and I've seen it work almost every time I've seen it deployed whether that's in person or in videos or anything My mentor was kind of the guy that wrote the paper on bare spray and it's been proven to be really, really effective, much more effective than firearms even. So Bear Spray is definitely the number one tool I would recommend people take with them in the Bear country, especially if you're gonna be around brown bears. The barebells don't really work. Sometimes we actually joke around and and call those dinnerbells. There's just nothing there's no real biological significance to that noise for bears it doesn't really register for them. It's not something that they necessarily pay attention to. Bear bangers which are like the little flares or the little pop gun kind of Lassiter that you can shoot at them or like cracker shells or anything like that. All of that stuff works really well. They don't like flares flying at them. They don't like loud noises. Those all work. For me, I carry Bear Spray, and then I have you know, sometimes a firearm has a backup. Okay. Shelly Carr asked, bears seems so gigantic compared to what they eat. Are they just eating all the time? That's all I'm caps, or do they have a slow metabolism? It's a great question. They're pretty much just eating all the time. Especially in the fall Rivet before hibernation when they go through hyperphasia. That's a time when they really are trying to pack on the pounds. And a bear will eat just about anything that comes across. They just really don't pass up any kind of feeding 2. So For example, a bar on a salmon stream will eat dozens of salmon in a given day. A bar in a berry patch can eat over a hundred thousand berries in a in a single day. And in hyperphasia, they're eating like anywhere from like thirty to sixty thousand calories a day. So they're really just packing on the pounds. And that's a big part of why human food is such a problem for them because them eating a box of twinkies essentially gives them the same amount of calories as they would for meeting berries all day long. So they really take advantage of any kind of high fat, high sugar food they can get And once they get it, they just want it more and more and more. So that's why the ones that get human food become problem bears. But yeah, they're they're really just that big because they don't pass up food. Bears are just shameless chow hounds prepping for winter, and we love them for that, except for when they eat the last of our cereal. And 2 has spent so much time photographing bears and even traveling by van on whims to different locations with his wife, how do they keep their snacks safe? Patrend Hillary criminal had a question. Bear boxes. I know bear boxes are important for camping. They're also expensive. What's next best thing? Typically if you're, you know, in a in a Lassiter, they already have the middle lockers for you. Some campgrounds will even rent 2 a bear bin. I've seen them for five dollars a week or so. You can always go to your local gear store and get a bear Lassiter. Those are usually fifty to eighty bucks, and then you can get a really good one for two to three hundred bucks. But I think, you know, keeping yourself safe and keeping the bears safe, an eighty dollar investment is not really too much to ask. If you simply cannot afford one, then I suggest just being super conscious and cautious of your food handling, store your food a hundred yards away from when you're camping, cook a hundred yards away from when you're camping in different direction. You can try hanging your food, although bears are pretty good climbers and usually can find a way to get to it. But yeah, I I think a a bear canisters not that much. But again, if you can't do it, there's a ways that you get around it. Wes is back to answer his last question on his list, which I thought was very tender and sweet 2 be honest. Finally, we have question from Kate Murphy. First time question Oscar asked, my dad has always had a fear of bears. So I asked him what he wanted to know. Here is questions. One, have bears been reported using tools? Yes. They have. Recently, there's a paper about a brown bear that actually used a rock that was barnacle and crested, and it was scratching itself with that rock. It, like, positioned it just right so it could rub its body on it and scratch it. And that was one of the first recorded bare tool use that's been, like, documented by scientists and it's in the literature. This paper side note titled 2 Use in the Brown Bear Erses Archdose appeared in the Journal Animal cognition and was written by Dr. Volker Deak, an associate professor in wildlife conservation at the University of Cambria. And it paints quite a splashy picture. It says, the animal repeatedly picked up barnacle encrusted rocks in shallow water, manipulated and reoriented them in its four paws and used them to rub its neck and muzzle. The bear exhibited considerable motor skills when manipulating the rocks. The bear's like, oh my god. Thank you so much. So they do sometimes use tools, but it's very rare and it really hasn't been recorded very many times, really just they do sometimes use tools, but it's very it really hasn't been recorded very many times just once. And then the second question is, how do bears respond to music? And do they sing? Bears don't like loud music. If you're hiking on a trail and you're playing loud music, something. It's gonna be annoying to all the other hickers, but also bears typically tend to run away from any kind of music or loud music. As far as if you were just to play, like, soothing music for bears for a while, I'm sure they get used to it. I don't know. How exactly they'd respond to it? And then the second part of that question is, do they sing? They don't sing. As far as I know, that's a great question. They do, as I mentioned earlier, make a lot of different vocalizations, but I've never heard of a singing bear. Well, thanks so much for the questions, guys. I'm really happy to answer them. Again, my name's West Larson. You can find me on Instagram at gris kid. And then also a project that I'm working on right now that I'd love to tell you guys about is another podcast. It's called 2 and claw. It's about human wildlife conflict. It's about attacks stories. We talk about these different animal attacks. And then I explain what the people could have done better to avoid Thea. how they can prevent Thea. And we tell a lot of fun stories in that podcast. So that's called 2 and claw. Yeah. And that's pretty much it. As far as the charity, I've picked the Grizzly Bear Foundation, which is a great Grizzly Bear charity, that I've done some good work with, and I really like those guys. So that's what I'd like to send the money So that's what I'd like to send money to. Alright. Thanks lot. And this brings us to our final chapter chapter Pressing pause. On bare peril. Let's go back to with the pollers because they seem the most screwed. Also, Dr. Bechshoft, I'm sorry that I made you read off the f word. I believed it just in case you don't want it on record that I made you read off the f word about bears. So, Kelsey's story is asking, how their bears in general and polar bears in particular. The majority of the world's bears are in trouble because of human cost habitat loss. For polar bears, of course, this habitat loss is the loss of sea ice. Their primary habitat for hunting, traveling, mating, and for racing, they're young. And so 2 answer your question, It really depends on our everyday choices and on the civic leaders that we elect. If we want to limit the consequences of climate change, On polar bears as well as humans, we really need swift political action. We need to vote with the climate in mind in each and every election and let our rep representatives know that we support bold climate action. If we use this window of opportunity that we have for climate change solutions, we can reduce the detrimental effects climate change in the years to come. We will still see a decline in CI's quality and extent and polar bears will suffer the consequences of that. But if we manage to lower the temperature in the arctic sea ice will eventually be restored and the bears will have a chance to thrive once again. However, if we choose 2 burning fossil fuels and emitting greenhouse gases at the current rate. It is predicted that we could lose up one third or more of the world's wild polar bears within the next thirty five to forty years. So Yeah. I cannot even overstate the importance of this. We still have window of opportunity. If we act swiftly, and we greatly reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, we can absolutely still limit the adverse impact of climate change, not only in the Arctic, but also globally. We have fully, we have the power 2 stop human caused climate change and to save the Arctic ecosystem mindblowing the polar bear. Katie Timothy. And probably lot of other people want to know how can we save the polar bears. So, polar bears need the sea ice supply platform for hunting seals. Without the sea ice, polar bears won't have access to this incredibly energy rich prey. That otherwise keeps them round and healthy. So no cIs means no polar bears. We have to protect the Arctic SeaIs. And in addition to being essential to the health and safety of people and animals in the north, it also plays an essential role in keeping our climate stable around the entire world. So, to save the sea ice, to protect polar bears, and to improve conditions for people around the world, we have to actively reduce the risks. And the best way to do this is by reducing our use of fossil fuels. Because when we burn fossil fuels like coal and oil and natural gas for energy, we release more and more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. And the atmosphere is like a blanket that surrounds the earth. And normally, it helps keep our world at a stable livable temperature. However, every time we add extra carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, it's like we're thickening this blanket, making it harder for the heat to escape. And so this extra heat becomes trapped under the blanket, warming up our world and disrupting the climate. And for polar bears, this disruption takes the form of habitat loss. So the warmer the arctic is, the less sea ice is formed. And again, no sea ice means no polar bears. Each of us can play a role in protecting a polar bear's future and our own by becoming involved in our communities and working to change systems. So this means that we must vote with the climate in mind at every level of government supporting civic leaders who understand the importance of addressing climate change and who commit to making renewable energy easy and affordable choice across all communities. And in addition to this, simply talking about climate change is incredibly valuable. Most people are just as worried about climate change as you But if we want to speed up that transition from fossil fuels to green energy, We need to start including the climate and climate change solutions in our everyday conversations. Katherine Feney is asking, I've heard people propose we move the polar bears to Antarctica to help them avoid extinction. Is this bad of an idea as it sounds like it is? Well, Catherine, for some reason, this is a question I get asked quite frequently. In other words, there's probably a number of you out there wondering the exact same thing. So in theory, yes, we could absolutely move some or even all polar bears from the Arctic to Antarctica. At least for a while, they would probably thrive feasting on the penguins and and seals because Antarctic animals are not used to any predatory threat while they're on land. So they would likely not even try to flee from the bears. It would be like one big polar bear buffet. This obviously would also be one of the biggest problems with introducing polar bears to Antarctica. Thea bears would just wreak absolute havoc on the Antarctic ecosystem. And even if it were to happen, a land chase between a polo bear and a penguin is no contest. And very soon, the penguin populations would be severely decimated. The same would likely happen to the seals, not least because polar bears would be able to eat their way through the seals popping fields with no problems. And Arctic seals give birth on the open sea ice. And not in birth layers under the snow as the Arctic ring seal does, which is the polar bear's primary prey. So in other words, what started out as a feast for the polar bears would soon turn to famine instead. Because the available prey would disappear leaving the polar bears with nothing to eat. And so, you know, while this devastation of the Antarctic ecosystem would be the most obvious reason 2 not move the bears to Antarctica. There are other considerations 2. For example, even though they're similar at first glance, Antarctica is an average much colder than the Arctic. Temperatures easily go as low as minus sixty degrees Celsius or minus seventy six degrees Fahrenheit. Polar bears are really well insulated, but not for temperatures that are this low for very long. And it will require massive extra amounts of food year round to keep the bears with the energy needed to stay warm and alive. And so sufficient prey is unlikely to be available year round in the Antarctic, and the bears could end up freezing or starving to death. Logistics would be another challenge. Which fares would you move? Would you attempt to still keep the currently existing polar bear sub population separate? How would you catch them? And also very importantly, who would pay this simply enormous cost of the project. So to sum up, yep, moving polybears to Antarctica could definitely be done, but it would create more problems that it would solve. Thea reasons I listed above are just a few for why moving the bears will be an ecological to faster in every imaginable way. Polar bears evolved in the north and are superbly, perfectly evolved for the arctic environment. That they inhabit. And so moving polar bears to Antarctica in the hope of saving the species would be an extremely short sighted solution indeed. So I, for one, strongly suggest that we instead focus all of our energy on curbing climate change. Drew weighs in on our brown bear friends. Ryan GS, how are bears coping with climate change? Not just polar bears, but all bears. I think most people have heard how polar bears are coping with climate change, but brown bears and black bears are much more adaptable than their polar cousins. So here in Alaska, specifically the brown bears that specialize in salmon, are gonna have problems with warming streams, warming water temperatures. Once a certain temperature threshold is breached, those streams can no longer support salmon. And that's when bears are going to start roaming around and looking for other food sources potentially bringing them into proximity and conflict with humans. And when bears and humans have conflict, the bears always lose. To give them a little bit of a win through 2 give them a little bit of a win, drew asked that a donation be made to friends of the McNeil Rivet, and you will find a link to them in the show notes. Now if you are Thea bear in your heart, but you wanna be professionally team bear, doctor Lena has advice. So Rebecca writes that she wants to be an Ursinologists and that all of her bare research and fieldwork so far has been through various volunteer programs. So she's asking me if there is a specific branch of work that I would recommend, like the National Park Service versus sanctuaries versus independent researchers. So Rebecca, no, I am There isn't a Brexit I would recommend. It takes all of us and it takes all of those people to truly put together a conservation effort. What I would recommend is that you decide. You take a look at yourself and all the work going on out Thea. what really interests you? Which branch of bears really fascinates you and follow that? Follow your passion. Rebecca followed up her question with what branch of research would I recommend to basically how does she get to live My life as an independent research scientist working on bears. So, Rebecca, in all honesty, I came across bears in my undergrad, in one of my And I did a directed study on them. And then I did an undergraduate thesis because it just it really fascinated me. I did it on there's being disrupted during Denning, by I did it on bears being disrupted during denying by snowmobiles. And it's something I, at that time, in my life, had never thought about. This is well back in the nineteen nineties. And so I just started following that and reading reading more about it and did an undergraduate thesis on the Bayer poaching trade. And then decided that I was really interested in bears and wanted to continue in this realm. So I was really interested in bear human I sought out doctor Steven Herrera. And if you haven't read his book, Bear attacks, there causes an avoidance. It is still the Bible today for bears and human bear encounters. And I applied for a with Steve Herrera, and I got accepted into that program. And did my with him on human bear conflicts in a park called Leyard River hotspur in provincial park in Northern BC, and that was on black bears. And still obsessed with bears, I traveled around working as a technician for a number of different people on a number of different field projects in a number of different locations all across Canada and decided I wanted to do my PhD. This time I wanted to work with grizzly bears and I wanted to get my mathematical skills up, my quantitative, and my modeling skills up. So I located a professor at the University of Alberta, Dr. Mark Boyse, who was very strong in that field and I followed that passion and I did the Parsley Bear project. So I guess basically what this long answer to your question is is I just kept following my passion and I just kept following what I wanted to do. And like you, I also volunteer countless hours towards conservation. Kimberly notes that she's fascinated by carnivores and would love to get involved in some research. So Thea what gaps are there in research on IRSA Day in general? So Kimberly, if we're looking at gaps, I guess, now, for our North American Bear species. I think a hot topic is climate change. So how is warming affecting bears? For from a human bear conflict perspective. So what I specialize in, we're seeing a shortening of the deadening period. So bears are not deadening for as long in some Thea. And that can of course increase human bear conflicts because they're out of the den for a longer period. So they have more time to potentially get in conflict with humans. Another thing we're seeing in coastal populations is a look at the salmon runs. So a look at the food resources for bears, what's going on with them and with global warming, and the temperature rise in our Thea, what's happening with our salmon. And if that is affected, what in turn will happen with those coastal bears? Mindblowing at this question from an international perspective, so in my work with the IUC and their specialist group, there are a number of gaps with our Asian species. So sun bears, we're really just starting to learn about them. Their ecology, their So things we kind of take it for granted that we know of with our North American species. We're just learning about those things with a number of species over in Asia. The sloth bear, the sun bear, and also in South America, the spectacle bear. So Thea comes back sort of to Rebecca's question, Kimberly, you need to just ask yourself what area really fascinates you and what can we look at in that Thea? Another big topic with Barrett's is connectivity, so trying to reconnect these small and isolated populations that we have. So we'll see that even in the U. S. Where you're likely based or I'm assuming you're based. So trying to reconnect these populations. So taking these islands and linking them back up for the health of the bears and the genetic of those bear species. Connectivity, threatened populations. So lots in conservation biology that is still left to explore. In thinking about Kimberly and Rebecca's questions and with those of you who are listening that are really interested in bears or all you wanna be Ursinologists, which by the way is a new word for me that I'm gonna call myself from now on because I I quite like it. Anyway, I encourage you to check out the International Association for Bayer Research and management. So the acronym is the IBA or the international association for bear research and So acronym is the IBA or the International Association for Bear Research and Management. That is our International Association. We host conferences. There's a number of great people. There's a jobs board. There's a newsletter. You can read what's going on, what projects are going on around the world. And you can find out a lot more information on bears from the IBA. Also, the bear specialist group, so the IUCN International Union for motivation of Nature's Fair Specialists Group also has a webpage. It is linked to on the IBA webpage and that can show you more on the research that our teams are doing. And what's going on around the world with our bare species. So thank you very much for having me and I hope that those listening will think about bears when they go out into bear habitat and the conservation of bears protecting their habitat and minimizing negative human bear encounters. You can follow You can follow doctor turn yellow on Twitter at lannah Ciarniello, and very much suggest you do. She's awesome. What about polar bear expert, Dr. Tia back t f If you want to follow me online, you can find me on Facebook and on Instagram at polar bear questions. You can also find me on Twitter at biotia. Now, the charity that I choose to support is Polarbearsinternationalorg is a nonprofit conservation organization, and their mission is to conserve Pollobears and the CIA's they depend on. And this work is done through media, through science, and advocacy to inspire people to care about the Arctic, the threats 2 future and to the connection between this remote region and our global climate. And of course, we're tossing some cash toward Danielle Rivet. Org of choice. Thank you for the donation to a bear charity of my choosing. And for this particular episode. I would appreciate it if any donations could go to the Idaho Black Bear Rehab that's in Garden City, Idaho. I'm not originally from Idaho. I'm from Virginia. But this particular rehab is operated by a wildlife rehabber who has basically dedicated the last thirty years of her life to giving orphaned Black Bear Cubs a second chance. They are able to rescue and rehabilitate and release orphaned cubs whenever they get them in, and they just really have a great bear rehab program They have lots of trained rehabilitators that work there and they try to work with the state wildlife agencies to make sure that Bear Rehab is a standard part of their management policies now. They're also very involved in educating the public about Black Bear Rehab. And how all of us really are responsible for protecting wild bears in their habitat. So Idaho Black Bear Rehab is a really, really great place to think about maybe making a donation if you're interested in that kind of thing. That's Idaho Blackberry Hub in Garden City, Idaho. Thank you so much, Ali, for having me. This has been so much fun. I'm so glad to say that I've finally now been on an episode of allergies. I am so excited. I never thought that that would ever happen. So thank you so so much for Thea. And for everyone who sent in such great questions for us to answer. If you're interested, I am on Twitter. You can follow me there Grizzly girl eighty seven. That's GRIZZLYG IRL eight seven on Twitter. Also, if you're interested, we did just recently get started with a Zuniverse project called the Arctic Bear's project. So you can if you're familiar with universe, you can go there and look at a lot of the camera track photos that we've been getting of all the different kinds of arctic animals that we see at the remote field camps in Wafask National Park. Where we are using remote trail 2 to monitor the Western Hudson Bay polar bear population. But we have lots of other really cool animals on those photos as well. And it just kinda gives you an opportunity to go through and and see what kinds of animals and the data and the photos that we're working with. It's so cool lots of cute little Caribou babies and polar bear babies and all sorts of really exciting things there. So make sure you go to zone reverse and check out the Arctic Bear's project. So help scientists help the bears. You can do that right now even if you are in no pants or on a bus or on a bus with no pants. Or in Antarctica with no bears. And let this be a lesson to ask Revenant smart experts do 500 questions about bears. Because look at this wealth of information and love for bears we now have. Also, I would like to be friends with all of them if that is okay. Now, there are links to all of the great things we talked about with Chris Morgan and to so many things that we chatted about with these six Ursinologists up at aliWARE dot com slash ology slash eosinology. There's also links to their socials in the show notes I suggest you follow all of them right now and get more bears in your timeline. I did. There is no looking back. It's the best choice I've made in twenty twenty one. Now, you can follow us at allergies on Twitter and Instagram. I'm both at Allie Ward with one l. Allergies merch is available at allergies merch dot com. Thank you, Shannon Feltis, and Bonnie Dutch, who hosts the comedy podcast you are that. For managing the merch. Thank you, Erin Talbert for adminning podcast Facebook group. Thank you, Noel, for scheduling so much. It makes so amazing. Thank you, Emily White of the Lassiter for making transcripts of the episodes. Kayla Patton bleeps them and those are up at aloware dot com slash allergies dash extras. Link to that in the show notes. Thank you to full time fiancee and co editor, Jared Sleeper, for getting through these edits with me. This episode turned out to be a real beast, and I'm so excited about it and I'm so happy to have it out in the world even if we were stumbling to put it up. And as always, Thank you, Steven Raymore. So the podcast and the Dino podcast see Jurassic for bearing with these big episodes as well, Nick Thorburn wrote and performed the theme music. And if you listen until the end you're forced to hear me confess something to you. And this week, I'm just gonna straight up say it. I don't think I knew until way too recently that there were no polar bears in Antarctica. I never learned that until probably like two years ago. Maybe if that, I kinda thought that all the polar bears were down maybe if that I kinda thought that all the polar bears were down there. I was like, that's where the ice is. Right? I had no idea. Also, when I was a kid, I thought that there was an Antarctica in the on the bottom, and then there was like an Antarctica continent on the top. Kind of like Earth was a burger, and those were just ice buns. So, hey, you know what? We don't all know everything. Okay? Apparently, there's no bears in Antarctica. Who knew it meant no bears? Ursinologists. Also, hummus tastes pretty good on hard boiled eggs. Now, you know, until next week where I put up an episode on time, probably Tuesdays, Tuesday morning, Now you know, until next week where I put up an episode on time probably. 2. Tuesday morning. I got this. Okay. Bye bye. Packarderm college, rhodos rhodos urology, rhodos urology. Ursinology, meteorology, meteorology. Here bears. Stear.