Grizzly bear habitat is typically made up by inland terrain far from the coast or any major bodies of water. Grizzly bear habitat will often include forests as well as shrub land. The Brown bear, of which the Grizzly bear is a subspecies, inhabit a wide range of different habitats world wide, including tundra, taiga, desert and dune, savannah and grassland, chaparral, forest, scrub forest and mountain environments. In Europe and the United States, Grizzly bear habitat is today often confined to mountainous regions since the rest of the land is too marked by human activity. Within the Grizzly bear habitat each bear will typically occupy a home range of 10 to 380 square miles. Even though the Grizzly bear habitat is filled with trees, the adult Grizzly bear is unable to climb trees. If you see a bear up in a tree on the North American continent, it is a very young Grizzly bear or an American black bear which is a completely different bear species.

The Grizzly bear habitat once ranged over vast areas of Asia, Europe, Africa and North America but the Grizzly bear habitat has today been greatly reduced by human activity. In North America, Grizzly bear habitat can today still be found in Canada as well as in the northern part of the United States. In Canada, Grizzly bear habitat exists in British Columbia, Yukon, Alberta, and the Northwest Territories in Canada. In the United States, Grizzly bear habitat is found in Washington, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho and Alaska. Alaska is where you will find a vast majority of the U.S. Grizzly bear habitat.

The proper taxonomy of the brown bears has been subject to a lot of confusion, and determine the typical Grizzly bear habitat have therefore been difficult since we have lacked a proper definition of what a Grizzly bear is. The Grizzly bear is a form of Brown bear and belong to the species Ursos arctos. It is one of two recognized subspecies of Brown bear and its scientific name is Ursos arctos horribilis. The other recognized subspecies is the Kodiak bear, Ursos arctos middendorffi. Some scientists argue that the Brown bears in Canada and the U.S.A. should be divided into at least two additional subspecies of Brown bear: Ursos arctos gyas and Ursos arctos macfarlani.

Separating Grizzly bear habitat from Kodiak bear habitat is not difficult, since Kodiak bears can be found nowhere but on the Kodiak, Afognak and Shuyak Islands in southwestern Alaska. No interbreeding with other Brown bears has occurred for thousands of years, since the Kodiak bear population has been truly isolated. When it comes to the coastal Ursos arctos gyas and the inland Ursos arctos horribilis it is however more difficult, since there is no such geographic demarcation. The coastal Brown bears tend to be larger than the inland brown bears, and it is these smaller bears that are generally called Grizzly bears. The coastal Brown bears stick to a more protein rich diet since their habitat contains plenty of fish. There is also a difference in coloration between the two bears. The name Grizzly bear is derived from the elongated outer guard hairs on these bears. These hairs tend to become white or silver tipped as the bear matures and give the coat a grizzled appearance. What complicates the issue of defining the Grizzly bear habitat further is that coastal bears breed with inland bears, and strictly determining what constitutes a “true” Grizzly bear is therefore hard. 

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