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• With intelligence comparable to that of the great apes, bears are highly evolved social animals. They're all individuals. Bears often share friendship, resources and security. They form hierarchies and have structured kinship relationships.
• Bears are not mean or malicious; they are very gentle and tolerant animals. Mother bears are affectionate, protective, devoted, strict, sensitive and attentive with their young. Not unlike people, bears can be empathetic, fearful, joyful, playful, social and even altruistic.
• Bears are not as unpredictable and dangerous as Hollywood or the media would have us believe. Bears exhibit very predictable behaviour. This trait can be beneficial to people who come into contact with bears.
• Cubs, as well as older bears, engage in social play and have ritualistic mechanisms to meet strangers and decide if they're to be friends or not. Bears routinely distinguish between threatening and non-threatening human behaviour. The same bear that casually empties your birdfeeder while you watch from the window also successfully evades human predators during hunting season. This requires an extremely high level of intelligence.
• Bears communicate using body language, sounds and smells. Bears will treat humans just as they would other bears. The problem is, bears are very physical with each other, with the intentional use of bites, swats or body posturing.
• Bears live in a rich and complex scent-defined world. They depend on their acute sense of smell for information about the world around them. Their smelling ability is extremely sensitive, with one hundred times more nasal mucosa area than a human. A complex system of social messages are communicated through trails of airborne scent; scent transferred to twigs, branches and grasses; and scents left on purpose by tree rubbing or biting, as well as scat or urine marks. In the ursine world, these messages form the daily newspaper.
• A bear's hearing ability is excellent, and like dogs, bears hear high pitches, exceeding human frequency range and sensitivity.
• Bears see in colour and have good vision, similar to humans.
• Bears are fast; they can run downhill and uphill at speeds exceeding 50 km/h - faster than Olympic sprinters!
• Bears are very strong and powerful animals; they have been known to bend open car doors and pry open windshields in their search for food. Bears routinely roll over huge rocks and logs in search of food. A grizzlies' powerful digging ability lets them feed on roots, bulbs, and rodents; and dig dens on steep mountain slopes.
• Size, body weight and color vary between species and from habitat to habitat.