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hubie [soylentnews.org] writes:

Given a choice, captive bears mimic mixed diets of their wild peers [wsu.edu]:

Bears are not cats or dogs, and feeding them like they are likely shortens their lives.

A new study in Scientific Reports [nature.com] on the diets of giant pandas and sloth bears adds more evidence that bears are omnivores like humans and need a lot less protein than they are typically fed in zoos.

"Bears are not carnivores in the strictest sense like a cat where they consume a high-protein diet," said lead author Charles Robbins, a Washington State University wildlife biology professor. "In zoos forever, whether it's polar bears, brown bears or sloth bears, the recommendation has been to feed them as if they are high-protein carnivores. When you do that, you kill them slowly."

[...] The current study, along with previous ones, also shows that when captive bears are given dietary options, they will choose foods that imitate the diets of wild bears.

"There's certainly this long-standing idea that humans with Ph.D.s know a lot more than a sloth bear or a brown bear," said Robbins. "All of these bears started evolving about 50 million years ago, and in terms of this aspect of their diet, they know more about it than we do. We're one of the first to be willing to ask the bears: What do you want to eat? What makes you feel well?"

Robbins, the founder of the WSU Bear Center [wsu.edu], the only research institution in the U.S. with a captive population of grizzlies, has studied bear nutrition for decades. [...] At the time, the researchers had theorized that the notoriously voracious bears would gorge on salmon, sleep, get up and eat more salmon.

Instead, they saw the bears would eat salmon, but then wander off and spend hours finding and eating small berries. Seeing that, Robbins' laboratory started investigating diet with the grizzly bears housed at the Bear Center and found they gained the most weight when fed a combination of protein, fats and carbohydrates in the combination of salmon and berries.

[...] "It just opens up so many more food resources than just being a straight, high protein carnivore," Robbins said.

Journal Reference:
Robbins, C.T., Christian, A.L., Vineyard, T.G. et al. Ursids evolved early and continuously to be low-protein macronutrient omnivores [open]. Sci Rep 12, 15251 (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-19742-z [doi.org]

Original Submission