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Good images of bears are difficult, indeed, to find, so I was especially pleased to find the grizzly bear image used above as a 'Lake' applet image. In fact, in the above presentation, I may be mixing my bears! The 'Lake' applet bear is a grizzly bear while the lovely Swedish postage stamp may be of a black or brown bear. Does anybody know? If so, please drop me a line. If I have mixed my bears, blame it on artistic licence!
We thank Animalpix.net for the grizzly bear image which would seem to be of an unknown origin. The 1978 Swedish brown postage stamp came from the following page, courtesy of Gregory Novisch. His extensive Teddy Bear Pages site featured also, in a reduced size, the lovely image of a Canadian postage stamp that appears below. Now, even though I live in Canada, I never knew that Canada had eight dollar postage stamps, let alone one so very beautiful ~ until, that is, I saw Gregory's fine site. The Canada stamp, was issued on October 15, 1997. Gregory tells us that the Swedish stamp, issued originally on April 11, 1978, is still available in Swedish post offices today. But those words were written in 2001.
It would seem that the grizzly bear and the brown bear are really the same animal (Ursus arctos). I found a fine drawing of a brown bear by R.T. Wallen on the WWW. I would not like to display his image here without permission, but found his original drawing on a web page that also provides lots of information about the grizzly/brown bear that you would find quite interesting including the fact that 70% of the North American grizzly/brown bear population is in the state of Alaska. R.T. 'Skip' Wallen, is, I understand, an Alaska based wildlife artist and a former biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.
