Fishing for Salmon (When You're a Bear)

Bears like eating fish. Among the most iconic images of brown bears (Ursus arctos) are those that show them wading out into a wide river or by a waterfall, and catching salmon for their food. Yet this isn't necessarily an image of everyday ursine behaviour.

This is because wide rivers, whitewater rapids, and so on, aren't all that common. Or at least, they don't form the majority of bear habitat. We watch and photograph bears feeding in such places because it looks dramatic and, more importantly, it's relatively easy to do. It's the same with other predators. We know a fair amount about the hunting habits of wolves and lions because we can watch them in Yellowstone Park or the Serengeti, where the terrain is wide open. That allows us to safely observe their behaviour from a distance, so, understandably, we'd prefer it where possible.

Learning to Hunt at Sea

One of the distinguishing features of mammals is that they invest a lot of time and effort in caring for their young. Of course, birds do this too, as do some other vertebrates, but the provision of milk is one of the key defining traits that's true of all living mammal species. (Probably most extinct ones, too, although it's hard to tell with the very early species). This means that newborn mammals are entirely dependent on their mothers in a way that the young of, say, most reptiles are not. 

But there comes a point where any mammal has to be weaned and make its way in the wider world. Even then, the maternal investment doesn't necessarily end with the mother continuing to raise and train her offspring for what can be an extended period. Brown bears, for example, are weaned at around six months, but they commonly stay with their mothers for at least another year, and often for two or more. We can see similar patterns in other mammals including, perhaps most obviously, primates.