Identifying Bears

I can’t say that I’m an expert, but I’ve seen enough bears to know a thing or two about them. I’ve seen about 15 bears including 5 grizzlies (2 in Yellowstone, 2 in Alaska and 1 in Washington). I’ve gotten pretty good at identifying them, but there’re plenty of bears that don’t fit the mold. For example, I saw a grizzly in Alaska that had the longest legs of any bear I’ve ever seen. It was truly remarkable and very strange. I’ve also seen photos of cinnamon colored black bears from Pennsylvania with larger than average shoulder humps giving them the absolute appearance of a grizzly bear. If you take the prototypical black bear and compare it to the prototypical grizzly, the differences are easy to distinguish. But every bear is different and in some cases the similarities can even stump the experts.

After seeing a video posted on the Washington Hikers and Climbers Facebook page, it reminded me that correctly identifying a bear can be challenging. The video starts off in what appears to be an easy to identify grizzly bear showing off a large shoulder hump and saddle between the hump and its rump. But later in the video, it’s hump doesn’t look quite so impressive and it’s rump appears to be the highest point along it’s back - which would signify a cinnamon colored black bear. Its head is also misleading with some shots appearing black bear and others appearing grizzly. I still don’t know what type of bear it is, but I can’t shake the image of that shoulder hump, which has me leaning toward grizzly. But given the unlikelihood of this occurring, the chances of it actually being a grizzly are small.

I stand by my sighting of a grizzly bear in the Cascades back in 1994. In that case, the shoulder hump was unmistakable and so was its body. This occurred further south than their usual sightings (Hart Lake just a few miles west of Holden Village) than most anybody would have assumed. My sighting caused quite the stir back at the village and I’m quite certain not one person believed me. Still, I’m absolutely certain of it and more so after I’ve seen grizzlies in other places.

Not every bear is as easily discernable. One bear in particular that I saw in Yellowstone was unidentifiable. It was big and dark brown and otherwise had no specific traits of any particular bear. In the Alaska Fish and Wildlife News article “White Black Bears and Blonde Grizzlies, Alaska Bears Wear Coats of Many Colors” a state biologist states “We had one (grizzly bear) that was so black we weren’t sure it wasn’t a black bear until we had it on the ground, although it certainly behaved like a brown bear.” So in this case, not even the biologists could identify the bear until they could check its paws. Using this as an example, grizzly bears can range from blond to black while black bears can range from white to black. To make matters worse, an enormous cinnamon male black bear can have a larger than normal shoulder hump giving it the appearance of a grizzly while some grizzlies of the same color may have smaller than average humps with larger than normal ears giving them the appearance of a large black bear. Pretty much every year a few hunters kill grizzly bears through misidentification. This isn’t necessarily because they’re ignorant, some bears are just that difficult to identify.

Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks offer an identification test (file:///C:/Users/czimborbryan/Downloads/BearIdTraining%20(1).pdf ), but it uses only prototypical characteristics. If you use the Alaska Department of Fish and Game guide “Brown Bear: Identifying males and females in the field” ( https://www.adfg.alaska.gov/static/species/speciesinfo/brownbear/pdfs/brown_bear_identifying_males_females_in_field.pdf ) , you will see a wide variety of grizzly bears which some could almost pass for black bears. The best test is by the Washington Division of Fish and Wildlife called “Who’s Who?” There are 10 bears to identify and it’s not as easy as you would expect. http://wdfw.wa.gov/hunting/bear_cougar/bear/files/who.pdf

In some ways, this may help to explain the low grizzly bear sightings within the Cascade Mountains of Washington. Some people simply don’t know what they’re seeing probably because some of the bears are not typical. Still, it’s likely that some of the black bears hunted from the Cascades may have in fact been grizzlies. Both of these statement are conjecture, but within reason. Also, it has been said that since a grizzly bear has been seen further south of its typical range means that it’s not a grizzly. This too is conjecture because there are no real barriers to the movement of bears within the Cascade Mountains and a grizzly bear’s range is enormous in an area so sparse with the species. The biologists working in Washington have recognized this and have made it clear that their range is quite large.