The Real Ones
Posted by Elmarie Cohen on September 4, 2005
Q: After "hibernation" where do bears sleep, eg. sloth, black, brown, panda, koala bears. During hibernation they sleep in caves,dens,etc, but we cannot find out after. This is for a school project in S.A. tkx
State: Massachusetts
A: Elmarie,
I trust you looked at "the Real Ones" unit but must have missed the fact that bears DO NOT hibernate. They do sleep a lot during the winter though.
Also, I think you're mixing up some animals that have "bear" in their names, even though they aren't really bears at all. Both the Black and Brown Bears are what we think of as bears however the Panda is not a real bear but is closer to Raccoons, nor is the Koala which is a marsupial (has a pouch), and the Sloth aren't bears either. These are very different animals than what we think of as "bears".
If you're looking for where bears sleep during their active times of the year, then they simply find any kind of shelter to do so. They may crawl into a nook in the rocks, lie down in a pile of leaves, or in a thicket of branches. Bears tend to roam about a lot looking for food so their sleeping quarters variy from night to night. They really don't need much shelter with their nice fur coat.
Hope this helps you out. Thanks for asking.
John Wiessinger ( September 6, 2005)