Bears of Katmai - Alaska's famous brown bears

Smell

A bear's sense of smell is said to be even better developed than a dog's. Like most large-muzzled carnivores, bears rely on their sense of smell more than any other. Their large muzzles have a huge inner surface area covered tens of millions of olfactory nerves.

These are just a collection of my thoughts, they can't be proven scientifically, but I imagine that to have such an immensely sensitive nose as a bear, a sense of smell must be to them almost like touch is to us, a smell would be so powerful it would feel almost like a fluid flowing through your nose. From a distance you could know just about everything you need to know about someone or something you're curious about through smell, like being able to touch and feel something at a distance.

Imagine if we perceived our world mainly through smell like bears and most other carnivores- what would things be like? It is possible we could have developed a written language in scent, or any other visual or audio media we are familiar with might be instead in the form of some sort of complex array of scents. Most carnivores are smell-oriented animals, and they experience their world differently than we do, through their noses.

Hearing

Bears, like dogs, have superior hearing that is very sensitive, especially to high-pitched sounds. Their ears are almost periscopic, able to rotate and focus on different sounds. They are unique among carnivores in that they have rounded, mouse like ears instead of triangular shaped ears that most of their procyonid and canid cousins have.

A few more notes on their ears, most people don't realize that a bear's ears are actually an effective way to recognize a bear's emotions and thoughts! Unlike primates like humans, bears do not have expressive faces like ours. Bears instead have more subtle expressive displays, in the movement of their ears and the position of their head. If a bear's ears are pointing forward, the bear is usually at ease, and may feel curious or playful about something or someone. However, if a bear's ears are pointing back and are flattened against the head, this often means that the bear may feel miffed or annoyed, or even angry and aggressive.

Eyesight

Contrary to popular belief, bears can see in full color, and have binocular vision that allows them to judge distance accurately. They are not myopic, or nearsighted, but have binocular vision that allows them to judge distance accurately. Their eyesight is about as keen as ours. Even as large as most bears are, their eyeballs are smaller in size than ours. Bears have the largest body size in comparison to eye size of any land mammal, and yet this doesn't seem to affect their vision in any negative way.

Touch

Little is known about a bear's sense of touch, but their paws can very dexterously manipulate a wide range of objects, from lifting huge boulders to picking tiny berries off a branch with their claws, and bears often touch their noses, lips and tongue up to objects to feel them. These areas are sensitive areas of flesh, and most likely to contain many neurons. Their paws may be quite sensitive to touch too.

Most people that have spent any time around grizzlies have done so in places such as Yellowstone or the Canadian Rockies. Those grizzlies would never get so close. So what's the difference? There are many reasons and factors to consider. One primary difference is that many of the Katmai bears have never been hunted so they have not learned to fear man. In the natural world, grizzlies are at the top of the food chain and thus most have no natural fear of man or any other animals. I say most because you can never use blanket statements when describing complex intelligent animals like bears. Some bears are simply fearful of humans even if they've never had any negative experiences with people. Each and every bear is an individual and some individuals are more cautious of new things than others. Of course, in areas of Katmai that see lots of tourists (Brooks, McNeil, Hallo) the bears have become quite used to people and therefore will get much closer than bears in more remote parts of Katmai National Park.

Living in a compromised ecosystem makes survival especially difficult, increasing the personal space requirement of a bear and the potential for aggression. Typically the more food that is available the more sociable the bear and thus coastal grizzlies tend to be more sociable than inland grizzlies. Grizzlies that aren't hunted and that have plenty of natural food sources can be some of the safest animals in the world to be around. Most grizzly bears are so confident in their power and their position at the top that they pay weaker species, such as humans, almost no attention whatsoever. In general, grizzlies don't see humans as food or as competition so most are largely indifferent to our presence

Bears are no doubt among the most influential animals humanity has ever encountered in our history, the bear is found in everything from our language, culture, psyche, pop culture, beliefs, ancient lore and mythology, religion, advertising, literature and common names. Though a symbol of the wild, they are found in all facets of our civilization, from our children's books to billboards to cereal boxes. The bear is almost an essential part of human existence. Just as our ancestors revered them as the symbol of loving mothers, immense power and even death and rebirth, we too can do little to avoid noticing the mark they have left in our modern world.

To humans They are both the monsters of nightmares and the cuddly friends of childhood dreams. They are heroes and victims. They are wise and ferocious. They are compassionate yet mighty. They are Goddesses, Saints, mothers, daughters, elders, teachers, and sadly, 'sporting' game, too often gunned down for lucrative poaching and ego-feeding trophies. They are a symbol of all that man hates and fears, and all that man adores and reveres.

And sadly, today, they are also symbol of modern society's inability to co-exist with our native Terran kin and of the devastation that man has brought to God's wondrous natural creation on Earth.

The great bear, an archetypal symbol of the might and majesty of wild unspoiled nature, is now a threatened refugee of modern man's sprawling "civilization" and victim of his cruelty. Like so many other rare and incredible wild creatures, it seems as if there soon may be no place left on earth for bears to live and thrive in peace as God meant for them to.

But there is still hope. Bears can still be saved.

If we can learn to co-exist with bears, and are willing to allow them a place on this Earth to share with us, then we may also be blessed with a great discovery, as we find a place in our hearts for them as well.

If we can rekindle our ancient kinship with the bear, then we can as well with all life, and rediscover our place in God's diverse family.

And we will all be blessed the more for it.

http://www.all-creatures.org/bear - A great resource for information on bears and bear conservation.