Spring Awakenings
What are the bears up to now that they’re awake?
This spring, we’ve been focusing a lot on one of our favorite activities—sleep! But as the spring weather gets warmer, sleeping season is ending, and now that Masha from BEAR SANCTUARY Domazhyr in Ukraine has officially been crowned the March Napness Champion of Sleep, you might be wondering—what are the bears up to now that they’re awake? We spoke with the experts at our bear sanctuaries to find out what the bears’ lives are like in the first weeks and months after they awaken from their winter rest.
March Napness 2025 Champion, Masha, at BEAR SANCTUARY Domazhyr in Ukraine
Waking Up is Hard to Do
When bears first awaken in the spring, they are still quite groggy, often sleeping 22-23 hours a day. As the season continues, the bears' daily activity slowly increases over time, with it taking an average of 2 to 3 weeks for their metabolism to return to normal. Several factors play a role in how quickly an individual bear becomes active in spring: the warmth of the weather can influence their behavior, as can the age and personality of each bear. For example, older bears such as 30-year-old Mascha (our 2023 March Napness winner) and Felix from BEAR SANCTUARY Müritz, become active much more slowly than the younger bears at the sanctuary.
2023 March Napness Champ, Mascha, from BEAR SANCTUARY Müritz (not to be confused with 2025 Champ, Masha from Domzhyr!)
What should we call winter rest?
Starting in the late fall, brown bears enter into a period of respite. While many call this behavior “hibernation,” a more accurate term is “torpor,” which describes a lighter period of rest than true hibernation. The bears’ breathing slows, as does the frequency of their heartbeat, and their body temperature drops; however, the bears are easily woken and able to defend themselves if the need arises. Torpor lasts from anywhere from 1 to 8 months, during which time a bear might not eat, drink, or pass waste.
Foraging First
During these early sleepy days, most bears use their active hours to search for food. They seek out grasses, roots, flowers, and any other plants they might find growing in their enclosures. At Arosa Bear Sanctuary in Switzerland, where there is often still quite a bit of snow on the ground in the spring, grasses and herbs are the first vegetation to grow in snow-free areas, and the bears first eat these, as well pine needles and the roots that they dig up from the thawing ground. The bears decide exactly what and how much they eat. Engaging in the instinctual behavior of foraging for native plants is healthiest for the bears, as it allows for a natural transition to springtime.
Eventually, our sanctuary staff slowly starts to supplement the bears' diet by introducing a very small amount of food to the bears—about 1.5 kilograms, or a little over 3 pounds. This food consists of green vegetation, which mimics the bears’ natural diet that would be available to them in the wild. This vegetation helps to stimulate the bears’ digestive tract, which for most bears, has been inactive throughout torpor.
Sam and Jamila playing in the snow at Arosa Bear Sanctuary in Switzerland
Step onto the Scales
To make sure that they are healthy, at many of our sanctuaries, the staff weigh the bears about every two weeks.The caretakers at BEAR SANCTUARY Müritz in Germany describe the process of weighing the bears in spring. “It is always nice to see the bears again after sleeping for so long. We like to give the bears a bit of time once they are out of hibernation to orient themselves, but we also check them and monitor their health. Within a few weeks of waking up this year, we started to get the bears on the weighing scales. All the bears seem to enjoy this process, as it is one of the few times in spring where they get extra treats like fruit and nuts.”
When are the bears truly "awake"?
For our March Napness Bracket Tournament, all our sanctuaries agreed on the same rule: if a bear is seen awake and out of their den for 5 consecutive days, they are officially “awake” and will be eliminated from the competition. However, some bears still sleep quite a bit after their official awakening!
Spring Wandering
In addition to foraging for food, many of the bears take some time to explore their enclosures, and certain individuals are quite playful. The Arosa siblings Sam and Jamila enjoy wrestling in the snowy landscape, and Erich from BEAR SANCTUARY Arbesbach likes to go for a swim soon after he awakens, even though the water can still be very cold!
Erich swimming at BEAR SANCTUARY Arbesbach in Austria
Nature's Enrichment
For millions of years, bears have been able to manage the transition from hibernation to the active season without human support, and healthy bears are able to go through this process all on their own. Our sanctuaries allow the bears to live in a species-appropriate environment, and the animals generally find a variety of stimuli within their enclosures, which give them natural enrichment and problems to solve.
Some of the sanctuaries, like Arosa, only use behavioral enrichments in the indoor enclosures in times when the bears must be briefly separated for veterinary checks or medical procedures. Other sanctuaries ease the bears back into enrichments after torpor, though all the bears decide for themselves how much physical activity they undertake. The types of food within the enrichments will often be limited in the spring—for example, no nuts are included in enrichments during this time, but the bears still get to enjoy lots of delectable treats such as dry coconut, purees, and dog food, as well scented enrichment and physical toys. At BEAR SANCTUARY Müritz this year, all the bears woke up to newly installed hammocks, which they very much enjoy.
Bear Teddy playing with natural stick "enrichment" at BEAR SANCTUARY Belitsa in Bulgaria
Do bears get sore from sleeping so long?
Bears are very well adapted to sleeping for a long period of time, and therefore their winter rest doesn’t make them sore. Some older, arthritic bears may at first be a bit stiffer when they awaken, but after a couple of weeks of medication, these bears loosen up and seem to feel fine. Evolution has prevented bears from developing atrophy, bedsores or osteoporosis during torpor.
More Snacking to Prepare for More Sleep
As the seasons change, the bears’ appetite increases, and more fattening foods will be introduced to their diet in late summer. Each bear has different food preferences, and some can be quite fussy, so our staff makes individual food plans for each bear in their care.
For example, Brumca from BEAR SANCTUARY Arbesbach, has been nicknamed “The Queen” for her picky tastes. She will often refuse to eat food that is cut “wrong” or placed in the “wrong” location—a true diva! This year, shortly after Brumca awoke, she was foraging and found some carrots and cucumber. Brumca tried to put the veggies in her mouth—and everything immediately dropped back to the soil. Maybe this happened because she is picky or maybe she was just tired! Very patiently, Brumca tried again, and this time she was successful. Brumca carried the veggies in her mouth back to one of her favorite eating places, where she sat down and ate them one by one.
Brumca snacking at BEAR SANCTUARY Arbesbach
In May and June when vegetation grows the most, the bears often graze for 4-6 hours a day. Our caretakers start to give increasingly high-calorie food in the beginning of July when the bears become more active. By the fall, they are often foraging 8-12 hours a day.
And before you know it, sleeping season is here again! Between October and December most of the bears at our sanctuaries either dig their own den or settle into a pre-made den and arrange it with leaves and twigs to their liking. How long they sleep depends on the bears’ preferences as well as the weather patterns.
For example, this year, the bears at BEARS SANCTUARY Müritz on average slept for a month longer than in years past. Perhaps it was the weather—or perhaps they just got the sense that 2025 was already a bit too much! We don’t know for sure, but our sanctuary caretakers track this information to watch for trends, always ensuring that we give our animals the best care possible.
Bear Hana sitting amongst the spring flowers at BEAR SANCTUARY Prishtina in Kosovo
Do the bears at Ninh Binh in Vietnam hibernate?
In general, Asiatic black bears do hibernate within the the northern latitudes (Russia, Korea, Japan and northeastern China) of their range. Further south, where food is available year-round and hibernation is not necessary. At our BEAR SANCTUARY Ninh Binh in Vietnam, the rescued Asiatic black bears do not hibernate, they do however have some mildly reduced activity and may sleep a bit more than the rest of the year, but they don’t go into winter dormancy.
For now, the bears are enjoying the awakening season, and we hope you are too. Don’t forget to lounge in the sunshine, enjoy the flowers, and forage for some seasonal spring offerings like our bears!
If you’d like to continue to follow what happens to our bears throughout the year, be sure to follow us on social media @fourpaws.usa and follow each of our bear sanctuaries too!