As far as this writer is concerned a brown teddy bear and a brown bear stuffed animal are not the same thing; there are brown teddy bears which sit up and have arms and legs that are human-like, and then there are brown bear plush which can stand and/or flop over on all fours like the real bear they have been designed to look like.
There has always been a lot of confusion surrounding the grizzly bear and what to call it. In North America, taxonomists have agreed that there are in fact two sub-species - the grizzly bear and the Kodiak bear. Whether or not you should call a brown bear a grizzly or a brown bear, depends on who you ask. All North American mainland brown bears are referred to by some people as grizzlies while still others call them brown bears. Some decide on what to call them based on where they live. The grizzly bear has hair tips which look "grizzled" in appearance as compared to the smaller coastal brown bears or the Kodiak sub-species.
For thousands of years, Kodiak bears have lived separately from grizzly bears on Kodiak, Afognak, and Shuyak Islands in southwestern Alaska. There has never been any inbreeding of other populations of bears. Kodiak bears are among the world's largest, quite comparable in size to the polar bear. Large males can stand more than 10 feet tall on their hind legs and 5 feet when on all fours. Males can weigh in at more than 1,500 pounds after feeding on salmon. In the Journal of Mammalogy, there was a listing for a male Kodiak bear that weighed 1,648 pounds. Females, on the other hand, are 30 percent lighter than males in addition to being 20 percent smaller.
Unlike Kodiak bears, grizzly bears do not live in coastal areas, which gives Kodiak's an advantage in terms of food protein; in the waters around which they live, is a rich supply of salmon that they feast on when the salmon are spawning. The areas are so rich in fact, 40 percent more brown bears could very well live there. Grizzlies can be found living in Canada - British Columbia, Yukon, Alberta, and the Northwest Territories. They also make their home in the United States in Alaska, Idaho, Washington, Montana, and Wyoming. They generally live in a range that is between 10 and 380 square miles and is inland, away from water. Some type of forested land or shrub cover can usually be found in their home range which they will often use for escaping purposes. With the exception of salmon, grizzlies and Kodiak bears generally eat the same things - berries, roots, rodents, whitebark pine nuts, and bulbs of plants. They have also been known to prey on elk, moose, mountain goats, and mountain sheep and in the spring, will feed on these animals' calves.
Don't be too confused about what to call a grizzly bear - all you need to know when it comes to purchasing a brown teddy bear, is that you want a teddy bear that's brown in color. It's that simple. Of course, if it's a brown plush bear you want, steer clear of the brown teddy bear!
Copyright Shelley Vassall, 2010.
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