Grizzly bear cub siblings playing in Denali National Park, Alaska, USA

© Ron Niebrugge/Alam

Sibling rivalry. Clash of the bear cubs

These two scrapping furballs in the US state of Alaska are grizzly bear cubs. Pregnant female grizzlies settle into their den in winter and give birth while hibernating, usually to two cubs. While their mother sleeps, the cubs nurse and grow quickly. When springtime arrives, the new family emerges from the den to search for food. These siblings will live with their mother for two to three years, after which they’ll venture off on their own.

Grizzlies once roamed the entire western part of the North American continent, from Alaska to Mexico. They now inhabit about half of their historic range. They can be spotted in Montana, Wyoming and parts of Idaho, but only around 1,500 remain in the lower 48 states (that is all the US states apart from Alaska and Hawaii). Of the 55,000 wild grizzlies in North America, about 30,000 of them are in Alaska and another 25,000 or so range through much of western Canada.