Happy New year to all.

I've been reading Bear! by Clyde Ormond (1961 Stackpole Books). In Chapter 8 Range Distribution and Habits Page 129 and 130 is found the following paragraph:

"Often bears which have to live on harsh diets, especially those made up of mostly roots and other unpalatables, are filled with large intestinal worms. I've been told by men who have killed such bears that these worms will sometimes reach a length of eighteen inches. The grizzly I killed in Alaska in 1958 had these worms - his whole intestinal tract was filled with them, we discovered while trying to retrieve the spent bullet."

Have you AK bear hunters seen these before? Tapeworms or what? Just curious...

No

I shot a grizzly in 1980 in Alaska, east of Denali along the Yanert River, and it was full of big worms. Gnarly looking things.

I have never seen worms in the body cavity of a bear. Keep in mind I don't typicly open a brown/grizzly bear up ether.

The only fist hand knowledge I have of worms in bears dates back to my first year guideing in 1979. I hunted down in the gulf of AK near Yakatat and the bear droppings in that area at that time had very large tape worms in pritty much every pile of bear poop on the ground.

Nope!

Not a grizzly but a black bear i killed had tape worms. They were sticking out of the exit hole,from the bullet.They were much longer than 18".

Any bear that eats salmon on the rivers in the fall will have tape worms. Saw one this fall that was dragging four or more and where sticking out three feet or more . Tape worms can get to incredible lengths. You see sections in scat all the time . I have also seen tape worms in the creeks over five feet. Spring hunts you don't have to deal with them much. Bears smell much better also.
Jim Phillips Southeast Alaska guide

On a fall brown bear hunt last year I saw a few bears with tape worms. At times there'd be segments of worms that had broken off as they trailed behind the bear.

Here's a segment of tape worms.



Here's a picture (pretty choppy water in the skiff) of a bear trailing worms.

oseen it a few tims both with Black bear and brown bear . One sow @ False Island had one between 6" and a foot wide and 6 feet long dragging along behind her . when one of her 2 cubs would step on it she would act kindof cranky but I can still remember seeing it flowing along behind her as she ran over some downed Red Alders and thru a crik and into the brush on the far side of the crik ... It was the first time I had seen one so big , I mentioned it to Ken Densmore the USFS sale Administrator and he told me what it was ..... I conldn,t figure out what it was .. It was all tattered and very gross!!!! I,ve seen black bear on Kuiu and Kupreanof with them also but not nearly as long .... All the bears I saw who had them looked healthy enough tho ...

You'd think I'd noticed a worm by now,I'll take a closer look from now on.

Maybe it,s a Southeast thing .. but seriously I,ve seen a number of them .

I live here in SE and I would say most of the bears in this area have them. During the warmer months we see numerous bears daily and its nothing to see a 15 foot tapeworm dragging behind it.

That enough for me never to infringe on your hunting territory!

I see bear trailing long tape worms virtualy evey year on the peninsula and their intestines are full of both tapeworms and roundworms. So are alot of interior Grizzlies. I have not noticed any in black bears but would be suprised if some didn't have them

quote:

Originally posted by waterrat:
That enough for me never to infringe on your hunting territory!

Whats a matter Jim .. the thot of trying to skin around that too much .... Me too ,yuk !!

yep, piles of them. most the ones i see up in unit 13 are round, about 10 inches or so. more like spagetti.
but i don't see them come out till a bullet goes in and blows them out.