Classroom lesson · Wildlife · 🇬🇪 Georgia

The Caucasian Brown Bear

Georgia's big, shaggy forest giant

What is it?

The Caucasian brown bear is a large, shaggy bear that lives in the thick forests and high mountains of Georgia, a country where Europe meets Asia. It is the biggest wild land animal in the region.

Tell me more

These bears have warm brown fur, powerful shoulders and a sense of smell far better than ours. They use it to find food: berries, nuts, roots, honey and fish. Most of what they eat is actually plants, so they spend much of the day munching like big furry gardeners.

In autumn they eat as much as they can to grow a thick layer of fat. Then, when winter snow covers the Caucasus Mountains, they curl up in a cosy den and sleep deeply for months, a long winter sleep called hibernation. Cubs are often born during this time, tiny and snug beside their mother.

Brown bears like plenty of space and quiet forest to roam. Georgia protects wild areas so bears, lynx and deer have room to live. Spotting a bear's footprint in the mud is a sign the forest is healthy.

In the classroom

Walk your class through this in 15 minutes.

Talk together

Discussion prompts

01Bears hibernate to survive winter when food is scarce. What other animals sleep or hide away in winter?
02A bear's nose is its superpower. If you had an animal's super-sense, which would you choose and why?
03Bears need big, quiet forests. Why is space so important for wild animals?

Try this

Classroom activity

Plan a bear's year. Draw four boxes, spring, summer, autumn, winter, and in each draw what a brown bear does (waking, eating berries, fattening up, hibernating). Count how many months it might sleep.

The Caucasian Brown Bear

Walk your class through this in 15 minutes.

Discussion prompts

Classroom activity

Other things that make Georgia special

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