European brown bear

Depending on whether the female bear has been able to put on a lot of fat over the summer and autumn months, up to three fertilised eggs may nest in the uterus. She is then expecting her tiny offspring in winter. A bear cub has a birth weight of around 300 g, the mother weighs five hundred times more at this point! Bears are omnivores, but feed mainly on plant-based foods. A bear can, or rather must, eat up to 30 kilograms of berries - mainly blueberries and cranberries - in order to survive the barren winter months. During hibernation, the bear only loses fat cells, the muscle cells remain completely intact. How bears achieve this is still almost unknown to science. While bears avoid people in the wild, they are not shy in the zoo. Keepers are only allowed to enter the enclosure for cleaning when the animals are kept in the bear house. Direct contact could be fatal!