Know Your Bears
Laura and I saw some bears at Yellowstone the other day, and we posted a video and some pictures:
We thought these were black bears, but a couple of reader comments said they looked more like grizzlies. After doing a bit of research, I believe these were definitely grizzly bears. How can you tell the two apart?
- Shoulders: Grizzly bears have a distinctive shoulder hump. Black bears have no hump.
- Ears: Grizzly bears have small, “teddy bear” ears. Black bears have larger, more prominent ears.
- Face: Grizzlies have a curved profile between their forehead and nose, while black bears have a straighter face.
Here’s where I found this information. Check out these sites and see if I’m right:
- Get Bear Smart Society – Bear Facts – from a Canadian organization dedicated to reducing conflicts between humans and bears.
- Bear Identification Program – Montana allows hunting of black bears but not grizzlies, so they require hunters to take a test proving they can tell the difference. They have an online training system that shows you the difference, a silly bear hunting game, and a test to see how well you know your bears. I scored 93%.