© Laurent Geslin/NaturePL.com
Foraging for rubbish
Foraging for rubbish
"It's surprising that two substantially distinct lifestyles can develop and coexist within a small and isolated subpopulation," says Gabriele Cozzi of the University of Zurich in Switzerland. This is a first for brown bears, he says, although such differences have been found within groups of black bears.
Cozzi and his team radio-tagged 16 bears, then followed their movement for an average of 10 months, and up to 20 months. They found that the 10 "dump bears" - seven males and three females - did not stray far from the dump, except to hibernate during the winter.
By contrast, the six bears - three males and three females - that never visited the dump ventured far and wide. These bears migrated an average of 165 kilometres each year in search of food, especially in the period before hibernation, when they were probably "fattening up".
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