The grizzly bear:
Grizzly
bears are found in some parts of Alaska and Canada. Grizzly means
grey - haired. Grizzly bears have got this name because many of them
have greyish fur. But there are also dark brown, cream coloured, tan
and nearly black grizzly bears.
An adult is about one
and a half meters tall. It may be over two and a half meters tall
when it stands up on it's back legs. They eat nuts, honey, acorns,
insects, berries, roots, mushrooms, fish, frogs and snakes. They also
eat ground squirrels and marmots hibernating in the ground. In late
autumn, before the winter, they dig a big den. It makes a bed of leaves,
grass, twigs and then goes to sleep. It doesn't sleep all through
the winter. It comes out for sometime for fresh air.
Thousands of grizzly
bears were once found in North America. But for many years they were
shot because people were afraid of them. The Mexican grizzly bear
is already extinct.
The
California condor:
Californian condor is
one of the largest flying birds in the world. They live in California.
These big birds feed mainly on the flesh of dead animals. When they
stretch their wings it is more than three meters long
form tip to tip. When they
see a dead animal, they slowly circle down and land a short distance
from the body. With sharp, curved beaks they hungrily rip off chunks
of meat. They lay only one egg a year.
Many people want to
live in California and, as the space becomes cramped, fewer and fewer
condors are surviving. Many Californian condors now live in a sanctuary
in California.
