Researchers Reveal Why Humans Often Encounter Bears While Hiking

Beruang grizzly. (Elizabeth/Unsplash)

JAKARTA - Grizzly bears or North American brown bears can indeed run very fast. But, not for a long time. Fact research reveals, grizzly likes the same type of hiking trails and walking speed as humans, although not the most energy-efficient for their ursine bodies.

Running popsci.com, scientists trained nine grizzly bears to walk and run on special treadmills (usually used for horses) placed in special cages of steel and plastic.

The research team asked individual bears to walk for about 6 minutes, with varying speeds and gradients (i.e. climbs). To keep the bear going, the lure of apples is available as long as the bear walks on a treadmill.

The enclosed enclosure allows scientists to then measure how different the bears' oxygen consumption is as they walk on top of the exercise machine, providing a good measure of the animal's metabolic rate.

Grizzly bear. (Joshua J Cotten/Unsplash)

The team found that the most energy-efficient walking speed for bears was about 4.2 kilometers per hour (or about 2.7 mph), although GPS data from bears in the wild showed that grizzlies typically only move at speeds of about 0.6 meters per second.

GPS data also showed that wild grizzlys are mostly stuck on footpaths with a softer slope, presumably to conserve energy. The discovery was published in the Journal of Experimental Biology.

Researchers also found, bears are very bad at maintaining high speed. The paper states their metabolic threshold is quite low, so they can be considered non-athletic.

But given how strong the bear is as we know it. This bear is a good fit to be referred to as a sprinter, rather than as an endurance runner.

It has an awesome running speed but it doesn't last long. (Richard Lee/Unsplash)

"Our study helps explain why bears want to use the same type of terrain as us, so it's no surprise to see bears walking on one of our paths," study lead author Anthony Carnahan said in a statement.

Visitors to Yellowstone National Park in the United States reported more than 37,000 bear sightings between 1980 and 2005. This study explains why sightings of bears during climbing are common.

Grizzly bears have the same preference as humans for sloping hiking trails, such sightings will most likely continue.

The researchers hope that these findings can help formulate environmental management and conservation programs that pay attention to humans and bears, for the safety and security of both.