Grizzly Bear Diet

Grizzly bears are great protein eaters, but unlike the lions, tigers, and polar bears who are pure meat eaters (also known as “carnivores”), grizzlies are “omnivores”. An omnivore eats both meat and fruits and veggies. Grizzlies will happily devour vast amounts of salmon during the salmon runs or wolf down a moose or elk they come upon. They will also move a ton of earth to get at a squirrel (who most often escapes), too, but most of a grizzly’s diet consists of berries and other plants. During the late summer and early fall. grizzlies can be found rolling through blueberry, huckleberry and other berry patches munching down these delicious fruits as fast as they can get to them. But they can just as likely be found catching salmon as the make their spawning runs up local rivers. Grizzlies are territorial and will stake out their food claims, whether it be the cold salmon-filled rivers of Alaska or a sunny hillside covered with berry bushes and vines.