Brown bear

What it is

The brown bear is the most widespread bear, from coastal salmon rivers to dry mountains. IUCN lists it as Least Concern. Size and diet vary by region; the Eurasian brown bear and the North American grizzly and Kodiak are the same species.

Range

Once across Europe, northern Asia, and western North America. Large populations remain in Russia, Scandinavia, the Carpathians, the Balkans, Alaska, and western Canada. Most of Western and Central Europe lost theirs.

What happened

Hunting and the clearing of lowland forest pushed brown bears into mountains and remote taiga. A few Alpine and Pyrenean groups hang on or are being reinforced. The species is not globally rare, but the Holocene map — bears following Ice Age prey into newly opened Europe — is not the map of today.

When / status

Still here. Locally extinct across much of temperate Europe; stable or increasing where people tolerate them.

Human role

Hunting and farmland removed bears from settled Europe; remaining populations persist on human sufferance.

Sources

IUCN Red List (Ursus arctos, Least Concern); European large-carnivore status reports.