The North American Grizzly and the East Siberian Kamchatka bear are real giants among the Brown bears too. Brown bears inhabiting Kodiak island near Alaska, the so called Kodiak bears, however reach lengths up to three metres and weights of almost 800 kg. The smallest Brown bears inhabit the Alps and are not much larger than a Saint Bernard dog. Because of this wide distribution there are many subspecies, which split off during the phylogenetic development of the Brown bear. Brown bears are distributed holarctic, i.e. But no other bear species and hardly any other animal shows such a wide variability as the Brown bear does. The Brown bear is closely related to the Polar bear (Ursus maritimus), inhabiting the northern polar regions, the North American black bear (Ursus americanus) and the Asian black bear (Ursus thibetanus).

Such accidents are normally due to lack of knowledge about bears or simply thoughtlessness. Just if a certain attack distance is reached - mostly by man - there might be a bear attack. Normally bears try to get out of humans' ways. Of course there is a certain danger coming from a large Brown bear, but under normal conditions bear attacks on humans are quite rare. This attitude towards bears is very common even up until now. From that times on the large bear was just an unpleasant and dangerous competitor one had to get rid of. This changed with the invention of firearms, which made it possible to hunt for bears at a relativly low risk. In former times the relationship between bears and humans was dominated by a kind of timorous admiration.

And even in the naming of large cities like Berlin or Bern it played an important role. Who doesn't know the brown giants - probably the best-known of all bears? The Brown bear ( Ursus arctos) can be found on coats of arms as well as on flags.