The Grizzly Bear Painting

Myth: Bears have terrible eyesight, so their sense of smell makes up for this. Truth: Bears have an amazing sense of smell, but it does not make up for a lack of vision because they actually have excellent eyesight. Bears can see just as well as humans do during the daytime, but it is during the night that their fantastic vision pulls out all the stops. Like your family’s dog or cat, bears have amazing night vision. There is a reflective membrane on the back of their eye called the tapetum lucidum which reflects light and causes light sensitive cells to react a second time to the light and therefore greatly enhances their vision at night. This is why if you see a picture of them at night, their eyes look greenish. Eyes really are the windows to the soul. As a contemporary animal artist, I am drawn to the eyes. The eyes are what humans see in non-human animals as a kinship, and as a result, this realization is one of the many aspects that connect us to the natural world.