American black Bear portrait

APPEARANCE
Black bears are 4 to 7 feet from nose to tail, 2 to 3 feet high at the shoulders, and have small eyes, rounded ears, a long snout, a short tail, and light grey skin. Their fur is shaggy or sleek, depending upon season.
Despite their name black bears can be brown and some rare specimens called spirit bears are actually creamy white! A large brown coloured black bear is easy to mistake for a grizzly bear. However, there are other ways of differentiating black and grizzly bears other than the usual size and colour difference. Black bears have a smaller shoulder hump, and a less concave facial profile. Their claws are smaller and more tightly curved for climbing trees. Their fur is less shaggy. Their ears are longer, smoother, and more tapered and they have a furred rear instep, unlike the grizzly.

Weights:
Males of breeding age: 125-500 lbs
Females of breeding age: 90-300 lbs

Records in the wild (captive sizes can be larger):
Male: 880 lbs (399 kgs), Craven County, N. Carolina, 1998
Female: 520 lbs (236 kgs), St Louis County, Minnesota, 1993

DISTRIBUTION
There are currently about 800,000 black bears in North America. It lives throughout much of the continent, from northern Alaska south into Mexico and from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. This includes 41 of the 50 U.S. states, all Canadian provinces except Prince Edward Island, and some of Mexico.

REPRODUCTION
Mating season: Late May to early July in northeastern Minnesota and extending into August in eastern and southern states. Each female is ready to mate for less than 2 weeks during that period.

Implantation: Eggs are fertilized at copulation in spring or early summer but do not implant and begin development until November.

Birth dates: Black bears give birth in midwinter. In northeastern Minnesota, most cubs are born in mid-January. In southeastern states, births also occur through February.

Litter size: Litters are typically 2 cubs in the western United States and 3 in the eastern United States. First litters are often 1 or 2. Record: 6 cubs in Pennsylvania.

BEHAVIOUR
Black bears are generally restrained, non-territorial toward people, and prone to retreat. They are well known to amble into urban areas looking through bins for food, but despite daily encounters across their range there are very few attacks.

Black bears are ruled by fear and food—in that order. Researchers are frequently amazed at how cautious these powerful animals are about tiny unidentified rustling sounds of red squirrels, mice, or birds.

Black bears have retreated from butterflies, a pair of mallard ducks waddling into view, a fluttering moth landing on a bear, and many other unlikely causes. Many small yapping dogs have chased black bears out of yards!

DIET
Black bears are omnivores whose diet includes plants, meat, and insects. They are apex predators in North America, with the exception of areas where they coexist with the brown bear. The black bear eats a wide variety of foods, mainly herbs, nuts and berries. In the state of Washington and other parts of the Pacific Northwest, black bears eat a large amount of skunk cabbage, horsetail and tree bark during the spring.[9] They also commonly feed on spring acorns in Massachusetts.[10]

They feed on carrion and insects (mainly for the larvae) such as carpenter ants, yellow jackets, bees, wasps and termites. They raid beehives for both honey and bee larvae as both are easy sources of carbohydrates (honey) and protein (larvae.) They also kill and eat small mammals (such as rodents) and ungulates, mostly the young. In Michigan and the state of New York, black bears have preyed on white-tailed deer fawns. In addition they have been recorded preying on elk calves in Idaho and moose calves in Alaska.

Additionally, black bears will eat salmon, suckers, alligator eggs, crayfish, and trout and will seek out food within orchards, beehives, and agricultural croplands. They may frequently raid garbage dumps, campsites, or appropriate food from the trash bins of businesses or private homes.

Black bears often drag their prey to cover, preferring to feed in seclusion and frequently begin feeding on the udder of lactating females, but generally prefer meat from the viscera. The skin of large prey is stripped back and turned inside out with the skeleton usually left largely intact. Unlike wolves and coyotes, black bears rarely scatter the remains of their kills. Vegetation around the carcass is usually matted down by black bears and their droppings are frequently found nearby. Black bears may attempt to cover remains of larger carcasses, though they do not do so with the same frequency as cougars and grizzly bears.