Most bears eat anything they can find: berries, nuts, honey and fruit as well as mice, gophers, fish, birds, eggs or carrion. In the spring they feed on protein-rich fare such as insects, larvae, fresh grass, seeds, roots and fresh plant buds. Occasionally, if the food situation is bad, they are forced to make do with bark.

Fish are skillfully catapulted out of the water with a swipe of the paw. Some bears become such gourmets that they sample only a morsel of the freshly caught source of protein, leaving the remains for other animals.

Yet bears are renowned for having a ravenous appetite. To avoid losing weight, bears have to eat large amounts of plant foods which are not particularly high in energy. In the summer months, for example, a brown bear requires around 10 kilograms of food a day.

Winter sleep – fasting until spring comes

In the fall, bears in colder regions feed mainly on calorie-rich nuts, acorns and berries until they have acquired a thick layer of fat, constituting up to a third of their body weight. These reserves of fat are all they have to live on during hibernation in their winter den – during which time they can lose over half their weight. In order to save energy during this winter sleep, the bear’s metabolism slows down, its heart and breathing rates decrease and its body temperature drops by several degrees.