Kodiak Bear 

The Alaskan grizzly bear, otherwise known as the Kodiak bear, can weigh up to 1,500 lbs., making it the biggest subspecies of brown bear. Populating the islands of the Kodiak Archipelago in South Western Alaska it’s also known as the Taquka-aq in the Aluiiq language.

The unique aspect of the Kodiak grizzly bear is that before it was recognized and named into a subspecies of its own by taxonomist C.H. Merriam, they were grouped into the subspecies of North American brown bears. This proved to be something of an inaccuracy as research of the genetic samples taken having proven Kodiak bears are closely related to brown bears on the Alaskan Peninsula and Kamachatka, Russia. These studies also show the Kodiak bear has been genetically isolated since at least the last ice age, some 10,000 to 12,000 years ago, with almost no genetic diversity in their populations.

A Kodiak bear’s fur color can be range from a blond color to an orange, mainly for the female in the southern parts of the archipelago, to a dark brown tint. The cubs often have a white ring of color around their neck for the first two years or so of their lives. This is often why Kodiaks are considered so closely related to the grizzly because of the similarity in color.

The size of a Kodiak is something of a wonder, since few bears have been weighed in the wild the weights are estimates. The female’s size range can be anywhere from 500 to 700 pounds and 800 to 1,400 pounds for the males. At peak times the male can weigh up to 1,500 times.

When the bears are 6 years of age they reach their adult size with the females being around 20% smaller and 30% lighter than the males. When the bears come out of hibernation in the spring they weigh the least, but increase their weight by 20 to 30% during the late summer and fall months. It is typical that bears that are in captivity gain a considerable amount more of weight than the wild bears. One of the best examples would be the Kodiak brown bear “Clyde” who died at the age of 22 in a zoo in North Dakota, at the time of his death he weight over 2,400 pounds, proving that inactivity and the ability to wander being severely limited have an effect on gaining weight.