I come bearing knowledge

Hi, I’m here to share bear facts! My inbox is also open for bear questions which I’ll answer to the best of my ability, but I don’t know everything.

It should be said that not all bears enter torpor. Like hibernation, torpor exists as a way for animals to survive through the winter months when very little food is available. Bears that live in warmer climates, such as sun bears and Andean bears, therefore do not need to enter torpor. Polar bears also don't need to enter torpor because they're adapted to live in an environment with winter-like conditions year round. Some other bears, such as American black bears and Asian black bears, which can live in a diverse range of climates, may or may not enter torpor depending on where they live.

The only thing that distinguishes glacier bears from other black bears is their coloration. Glacier bears aren't a unique population, but a variant that is found in certain populations of ordinary black bears, caused by a recessive gene. There is presumably a reason why this gene has been more successful in some populations than in others, so it's possible that the coloration itself could be considered an evolutionary adaptation. At this point researchers don't know what advantage, if any, the glacier bear's coloration provides.

And they do actually eat honey! In fact most bears eat honey from time to time, but for sun bears it's a relatively large portion of their diet. Their 10 inch (25 cm) long tongue helps them extract honey, bees, and bee larvae from beehives.

The grizzly-polar bear hybrid, which is rarely found in the wild, has no official name but is known by many unofficial ones. Its names include grolar bear, pizzly bear, grizzlar bear, and nanulak. 

The glacier bear, also called the blue bear, is a color morph of the American black bear that is found in southeast Alaska and northwest British Columbia. Little research has been done on these bears so no population estimates exist and it’s unclear whether or not they constitute a distinct subspecies of the American black bear.

Polar bears are the youngest extant bear species. Evolutionary studies suggest they diverged from brown bears about 150 thousand years ago.

Slovenia has more bears per square kilometer than any other country. Slovenia, which has seen its bear population more than double in the past twenty years, has an average of forty bears per 100 square kilometers.

these are a few of my favorites, but I also have a blog dedicated to bear pictures: @pictures-of-dogs

So my answer is that no, for all practical purposes, bears cannot be domesticated. Simply put, bears cannot be and will never be pets.

Sun bears are the smallest bear species, with a body length of around 4 to 5 feet and a maximum weight of about 150 pounds.

I don’t know enough to weigh in on whether the fossil came from a polar bear or a brown bear. All I know is that initial research suggested it was from a polar bear, but a later reanalysis, which has not been published, suggests it came from a brown bear instead. What this tells me is that we don’t know for sure if “ursus maritimus tyrannus” actually existed.

American black bears are by far the most common bear species, with a total population of at least 600 thousand. The next most common bear species, the brown bear, has a total population of only around 200 thousand.

Though there have been many unverified sightings, there have only been eight confirmed grolar bears (grizzly-polar bear hybrids) found in the wild. All eight were descended from a single female polar bear who mated with two male grizzly bears.

Polar bear hair shafts are hollow, which allow them to reflect light better. They’re also transparent, but appear white because they scatter light of all wavelengths—the same reason ice can appear white. These qualities help polar bears absorb more heat through their skin.

The Atlas bear was a subspecies of the brown bear that once inhabited Northern Africa. The population declined largely due to overhunting during the Roman Empire, but they finally went extinct in the late 19th century.