The Brown Bear: Ursus arctos

Its heavier build and brown coat will suffice to distinguish it from the Himalayan Black Bear. The brown varies individually and seasonally from dark to light, while tips to the fur may give the coat a silvery tinge. Usually the coat becomes tawny or red brown when old and worn; a darker, richer brown when grown new in summer, and long, luxuriant, and heavily furnished with underwool before the onset of winter.

They are found in the higher levels of Waziristan, north western and central Himalayas, and Butan.
The bare open peaks high above the tree line are the usual haunts of these bears. Emerging from the winter sleep in the spring, they follow the melting snows up to their perpetual level. At this season and in the early summer they graze like cattle on the newly grown grass, or hunting voles and marmots, which they dig out of their burrows. It is the time when the food is not plentiful and even carrions may be eaten. When summer has set in individuals take to killing sheep and goats and ponies, which are then brought to high pastures to graze. Developing this habit a bear may become a real terror to livestock; but it never becomes a man killer, fearing and avoiding man. Later in the summer or early autumn the bear come down to the lower reaches. It is the fruiting season when berries and the wild fruit are to be had in the forests, apricots, peaches, apples, mulberries, and walnuts. Brown Bear seldom climbs, and much of their diet at this time is limited to grass, roots and tubers. But in winter, there is no food and Bear goes into some shelter under the rocks, in a cave or a den dug out by itself to pass the season. Females are then with young, for they mate in the early summer, in May or June. The cubs are born within the snug winter retreat. By the May the cubs are sufficiently grown to follow their mother in her quest for food. They remain with her till they attain maturity. How long they really take to grow is not accurately known.

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