Entry #4 The Best of Bears

Have you ever wondered about bears? Their purpose in life? What they do? Bears are often seen as nuisances and trouble-makers in people's eyes today. People often see them as large, furry animals that do nothing but eat fish and sleep during the winter. Well these accusations are all false. Bears are much more than what people expect.

Bears At Their Finest

Bears have multiple purposes in life. One of them is to help keep the balance of the environment. Bears are omnivores, which means they eat plants and animals, not just fish. Some of these foods include berries, carrion, deer, honey, shrubs, grasses, moose, salmon, and other plants and animals within their environment. Since bears eat both vegetation and animals, they help keep their populations from being too high. If bears didn't exist, carnivores and herbivores within their homeland would have to work harder to keep a natural balance of populations. 

These two photographs reveal that bears eat both meats and plants to survive. The upper photo shows a bear catching a trout for food. The bottom photo shows a bear eating berries, one of a bear's favorite foods.

Bears also keep predators at bay as far as population goes. Animals compete for food so that they can survive. Survival of the fittest. Bears are the largest carnivore within their territory, so whatever other carnivore is within the area, they have a tough competition. Wolves, mountain lions, coyotes, badgers, and wolverines are several of the carnivores that have to compete with bears for food. These competitions can be fatal. For example, if a bear brawls with a single coyote, the coyote could possibly die. That's how bears keep a balance between other predators.

This is a great visual of competition seen in the wild. Bears and wolves fight one another over food or territorial space.

Overall Picture

People may think bears are large, lumbering giants, but they are more than that. Bears keep wild environments balanced and at bay. If it weren't for bears, many plant and animal species might have population problems. Herbivores and carnivores would overpopulate, which would, in effect, wipe out plant species. Overall, bears are stabilizers of the environment and the plants and animals that live in them, not pointless, fish-eating giants.