Big bears gotta eat. It’s one of the laws of nature.
But big bears really gotta eat, especially this time of year when both black and brown bears are fattening up for winter.
Bears adding bulk has become so celebrated that Fat Bear Week is now a 7-day celebration of one of nature’s most impressive seasonal phenomenon. While brown bears, like those in Katmai National Park, have access to excessive amounts of protein-packed salmon to help them add weight, black bears have to be a little more creative when it comes to finding calories.
That’s why black bears around the continent have been more emboldened to feast on pumpkins along the road, hunt down full-grown deer, and steal packages from front porches.
That relentless pursuit of things to eat is also why conflicts with bears increase this time of year.
It’s no secret that bears are extra hungry this time of year, but a shocking photo recently displayed by the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Department really puts the astonishing amount of food that black bears consume each day into perspective.
The bears have documented eating as many as 20,000 calories each day.
The photo reportedly showcases what roughly adds up to just 12,000 calories looks like broken down into food sources that people can easily understand, which means that the average black bear might eat even more than this each day.
The daily menu includes:
A dozen Dunkin’ Doughnuts
An order of Pizza Hut cinnamon sticks
A medium pepperoni pie from Pizza Hut
Two McDonald’s double cheeseburgers
McDonald’s Milkshake
McDonald’s fries
One Sonic Cheeseburger
A chili-cheese dog from Sonic
An order of Sonic chili-cheese tater tots
A Starbucks Pumkin Spice Latte
A Jimmy Johns Sandwich
A Chipotle burrito
5 Hershey chocolate bars with almonds
