15 Grisly Facts About Bears Everyone Should Know

Grizzly bears were so feared and respected by Native Americans that hunting them required a company of 4 to 10 warriors and was done with the same preparation and ceremoniality as intertribal warfare.

The part of the reason it is so hard to get Pandas to mate is that the female Panda is only fertile for a short period in the spring. Their sexual interest lasts just 24-72 hours per year.

A bear cub named Winnipeg was exported from Canada to the London Zoo in 1915. A little boy named Christopher Robin Milne loved to visit Winnipeg (or Winnie for short) and his love for the bear cub inspired the stories written by his father, A.A. Milne, about Winnie-the-Pooh.

Certain bears in Russia have become addicted to sniffing Jet Fuel out of discarded barrels. They are going as far as stalking helicopters for the drops of fuel they leave behind.

A group of up to 30 bears surrounded and attacked a remote Russian platinum mine in 2008, killing two security guards and trapping 400 people there.

All polar bears alive today can trace their ancestry back to one female brown bear who lived in Ireland.

Some black bears are born white and are called Spirit bears. They are not albino or polar bears.

Pandas can poop up to 48 pounds per day.

Pablo EskoBear was a nickname given to a 175lb black bear that died from a drug overdose after he consumed about half his own weight in cocaine. The bear was later stuffed and it is now a tourist attraction in Kentucky. He currently has a note hanging around his neck warning: “Don't do drugs.”

12,000 bears are farmed for their bile in Asia which is used in traditional Chinese medicine. They generate $2 billion per year. Farming always involves surgery on the bears to insert a catheter or to cut a hole through the abdomen by which the bile leaks. Bear bile has no medicinal effect.