When winter comes, some bears will find a suitable place for themselves, and then they will fall asleep here without eating or drinking. In some areas, bears may hibernate for about 6 months, during which they will consume their own fat for a living, in order to reduce energy consumption, they will reduce their metabolism, for example: black bears can make their heartbeat from the original 55 times per minute, down to 9 times per minute, breathing from the original 6-10 times per minute to about 1 time; body temperature will be lower than usual, but not much lower. Under these measures, the metabolic level of black bears dropped to 1/4 of their usual activities.
In order to reduce consumption as much as possible, black bears fall into a deep sleep throughout the winter, so the question is, if a carnivore finds them at this time, will they be attacked by carnivores?
Although bears need to hibernate like snakes, the reasons for hibernation between bears and snakes are not the same. Snakes hibernate because snakes can not regulate their body temperature, can only follow the changes in the outside temperature, when the outside temperature is lower than 15 degrees Celsius, the enzymes in their body will be difficult to participate in the reaction, which will cause them to be difficult to move, can only find a safe place to hibernate. This also leads to the fact that snakes do not have any ability to fight back during hibernation, which also makes some local snake catchers specifically catch snakes in winter.
Bears differ from snakes in that they are thermostatic creatures that are able to produce their own energy for body temperature maintenance, so they can move freely even in winter. However, bears are omnivores, and some bears have 60% of their food made of plants and only 40% of them meat (polar bears have a much higher proportion of meat). In the cold winter, extremely low temperatures cause plants to wither and be covered with heavy snow. Animals will either hibernate during the cold season, such as squirrels, or migrate to other places, or be directly frozen to death. This makes it difficult for bears to catch enough food during the cold season, and in order to save energy, they have to spend the long winter hibernating.
However, not all bears will go into hibernation, and if the bears are in a place with enough food or a high temperature, they will also remain active during the winter.
If you are lucky enough to find a place for a bear to hibernate in the winter, then you must not make a noise to alarm it, and the best way to do it is to run away before it wakes up. This is because although bears hibernate, bears are still conscious during hibernation, and they are still alert, and they can wake up as soon as possible in case of emergency during hibernation.
In places where black bears and brown bears live, there are also large carnivores and tigers, and tigers have had the habit of preying on bears since ancient times. Based on an analysis of animals that ate tigers at the Sikhote Arin Reserve from 1992 to 2013, the researchers found that local tigers preyed on brown and black bears, with 1.2 percent of them preying on brown bears and 1 percent of black bears.
For tigers, bears are not their main food, but during the season when food is scarce, bears are also a rare delicacy. However, most tigers do not have the ability to prey on bears, and only a small number of male tigers can effectively kill bears. For example, Tiger King Dale, it preyed on at least three adult female brown bears, a small brown bear, and an adult male black bear.
For male bears, they are relatively safe because of their large size, and even the tiger king Dale rarely fights them, let alone other tigers. However, female bears and cubs are easily disturbed by male tigers, especially in the season when food is scarce, so in order to ensure the safety of hibernation, bears will choose suitable hibernation warehouses to overwinter.
When the bear chooses the hibernation warehouse, there are three kinds of choices, the first is that there is no hidden warehouse, the advantage is that the warehouse is easier to find, but the disadvantage is that it is easy to be found by tigers. In fact, many bears are eaten by tigers during hibernation because their hibernation barn is a ground barn.
The second type of hibernation chamber is the tree cabin, which withers in the center of the tree and has enough space to accommodate the bear, which can prevent tiger harassment. But if the height of the tree cabin is at the root, sometimes the tiger can come and go freely.
The third is the stone cabin, the protection function of the stone cabin depends on the size of the entrance of the stone cabin, if the entrance is extremely small, the tiger entering the stone cabin may be killed by the bear. But if the entrance is larger, hibernating bears will also be at risk.
Because there are fewer hibernation chambers with better concealment, most bears do not have a good hibernation position, and they are weaker than usual during hibernation, which is more vulnerable to tiger attacks.
However, bears also have a certain ability to fight back during hibernation, and not all tigers can hunt them. With the exception of tigers, other local predators have little chance of threatening their survival, so bears are much better off than snakes when they hibernate.