“On the Wind ~ Brown Bear,” copyright Susan A. Walton, S. A. Walton Studio, Hudson, Florida.

This is just a little color study on paper of a bear that I witnessed a very long time ago at the St. Louis Zoo, before I moved to Florida. I slimmed it down a bit since it had a little of that ‘fat zoo look’ about it, and when I use this in creating a full scale piece, I'll have to work on giving it more muscle definition to better suit a bear that has been living on its own wits, in nature. But until I get to Alaska to see actual wild bears in person, this will have to do.

This fellow had been a resident of St. Louis’ famous zoo for quite a while. I used to make a point of visiting them every time I was at the zoo, and watching them enjoy the water feature in their enclosure, amused at the very different look the big animals acquired when they got wet. That fur hid a lot of anatomical detail when it was dry!

One oddity is that bears don’t have a conventional evenly spaced arrangement of nipples like dogs or cats do. Instead, they have two nipples on their chest like we do, but also have a set of four very low on their body between the hind legs. There is a big gap in between the two groups. I am not sure why that is, other than perhaps having two groups of nipples so far apart insures that baby bears, which are born when their mothers are mostly sleeping through the winter, will always have a set free to use no matter what position their mother is dozing in. But if that was the case then wouldn’t an evenly spaced series do the same thing?

Just wondering on my part, until I do some more reading.

(But enough talk of nipples. )

On this visit, the bear wasn’t indulging itself in the water. It reared up on its hindquarters, and was taking its time stretching all of its muscles. As it did so, it sniffed the air with its very flexible, expressive snout- in search of an apple someone had been eating quite some distance away.

It was a bit disconcerting that the animal had detected that one very small apple. While quickly sketching the bear, I took the occasion as a good reminder to be careful about casual dining outdoors, or even going outdoors after eating, if I should ever make it to grizzly or brown bear country.

I didn’t grow up in bear country; I grew up in the lower Midwest where the only danger to be encountered by eating apples was attracting yellow-jackets. There were no bears in Illinois, or southeast Missouri, back in those days.

Times have changed since then, and there are now bears in the woods I grew up in; not grizzlies, of course, but the much smaller black bears that are moving in from Arkansas. There are also wild boar now, and possibly even a roaming male mountain lion or two. One day there may even be elk again.

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