How is it that a bear can hibernate through the winter without eating or even using the bathroom?

Answer 1

No. Bears stop eating several days before they go to bed in fall. Some waste still builds up inside. But it forms a special intestinal plug. Scientists call it a fecal plug. Think of it as a cork in a bottle. A Yellowstone National Park study says, "This plug may keep the bear from defecating [pooping] inside the den during hibernation, as fecal plugs are found just inside or outside the dens of bears that have just emerged."

Answer 2

Actually bears don't hibernate. Bears do what scientists call "winter lethargy," where they slowly lie dormant for a few months waking only a few times to eat. They do not defecate or urinate and their body temperature drops only about 10 degrees Fahrenheit. Their heart rate slows and their breathing is slowed as well. They do give birth during this period though and their bodies produce milk for the cub or cubs to drink. It is not technically hibernation but they do hibernate, kind-of

Animals that do hibernate, the ground squirrel for example, will drop their body temperatures as low as 32 degrees Fahrenheit or even lower, utilizing their body's high sugar content to keep from freezing solid. They enter dormancy fast and are hard to wake up. Bears enter slowly and can be aroused relatively easily.

Other animals, some frogs for example, actually freeze their body fluids during hibernation and lay completely frozen metabolically for several months during very cold winters.

But when they go out for "winter lethargy

' they eat a lot of food and stuff pinecones up the butt to reduce pooping so they can live through the hard cold winter
When a bear is hibernating its breathing and heart rate slow down. They can go 100 days without food and water.

Answer 3

it cuts it metabolism in half. its sleeping heart rate is about 8-40 beats per minute rather than 60-90. It is a common misconception that bears hibernate straight through the winter. They occasionaly do become active to urinate or possibly even eat food. The bear eats lots of food in the fall and stores the excess nutrients in its fat. When hybernating the bears body processes slow down. The heart beats slower and it uses a lot less energy. It slowly uses up the nutrients stored in the fat until the spring.

Answer 4

It would go against all their survival instincts if they hibernated in the summer

They give birth to their young during the hibernation period, in the winter

. Being such a large mammal, they need time to nurture their young in relative protection from large males who have no qualms about eating a sows babies. Over the millennial of evolution they have become instinctual about hibernation. By the time the cubs are nine months or so, they have developed enough skills to survive with their mother's help.

After they reach the age of two years they go off on their own

Answer 5

Not all bears hibernate. However, those that do hibernate survive by reducing their metabolic rates dramatically and slowly burning the large fat reserves they have built up over the summer months.

Answer 6

To conserve energy, and winter is also a time where food sources are low, so the bear would not have to worry about when his next meal would be.

Answer 7

I don't know if a bear hibersnates or not! But I do know that it is a myth that bears hibernate they just eat a lot before winter because there's no food once there's snow on the ground.

Answer 8

From fat.