American Black Bear Appearance Habitat And Behavior

The black bear occurs throughout much of North America from northern Canada and Alaska south into Mexico and from the Atlantic to the Pacific. This includes 39 of the 50 U.S. states and all Canadian provinces. Populations in east-central and the southern United States remain in the protected mountains and woodlands of parks and preserves. While there were probably once as many as two million black bears in North America, estimates in the 1980s put their numbers at less than 200,000. Some believe that the population has rebounded to some degree in recent years.

1 Appearance

The black bear is approximately 5 feet (1.5 metres) long. Females typically weight about 90 pounds (40 kg), while males weigh about 290 pounds (130 kg). However, some can weigh up to 700 pounds (318 kg). Cubs usually weigh about 1 pound (500 g) at birth. It has small eyes, rounded ears, a long snout, a large body, and a short tail. The shaggy hair varies in color from white through chocolateChocolate is a common ingredient in many kinds of sweets—one of the most popular in the world. Chocolate is made from the fermented, roasted and ground seeds of the tropical cacao tree Theobroma cacao''. The resulting product is known as "chocolate," an i brown, cinnamonCinnamon Cinnamomum zeylanicum is a small evergreen tree 10-15 m tall, belonging to the family Lauraceae, and a spice obtained from the inner bark of this species. It is native to Sri Lanka. The leaves are ovate-oblong in shape, 7-18 cm long. The flowers, brown, and blonde to black, but most black bears are indeed black or a darker shade of brown.

While black bears are capable of standing and walking on their hind legs, the usual posture is on all fours. The black bear's characteristic shuffle results from walking flat- footThis article is about a foot as a biological structure. For other uses of foot, see foot (disambiguation). The foot is a biological structure found in many animals that is used for locomotion. The plural of foot is feet and this pair is one of seven mutated, with the hind legIn zoological anatomy, a leg is any one of the parts of an animal's body that (in most legged species and at most times) separate the rest of the body from the ground, and are used for locomotion. Legs are most common in one of the even-numbered quantities slightly longer than the front legs. Each paw has five strong, non-retractable claws used for tearing, digging, and climbing. One blow from a powerful front pawPaw is the soft foot of an animal. A hard foot are called hoof. Also see: PAW''. is enough to kill an adult deerAbout 15 in 4 subfamilies. Defined strictly, a deer is a ruminant mammal belonging to the family Cervidae . A number of broadly similar animals, from related families within the order Artiodactyla, are often also called deer''. Depending on the species, m. But in spite of their size and strength, black bears are surprisingly agile and careful in their movements.

2 Habitat and behavior

Black Bears prefer forested and shrubby areas but use wet meadowA meadow is a tract of grassland, either in its natural state or used as pasture or for growing hay. Meadow is an open source programming project to port the popular GNU Emacs text editor for UNIX-based operating systems to Microsoft Windows with some adds, high tidelands, ridgetops, burned areas, riparian areas, and avalanche chutes. They also frequent swampy hardwood and conifer forests. After emerging from their winter dens in spring, they seek southerly slopes at lower elevations for forage and move to northerly and easterly slopes at higher elevations as summer progresses. Black Bears use dense cover for hiding and thermal protection, as well as for bedding. They climb trees to escape danger and use forested areas as travel corriders. Black bears hibernate during winter and may build dens in tree cavities, under logs, rocks, in banks, caves, or culverts, and in shallow depressions.

Black bears reach breedingBreeding has several meanings related to procreation: In animal husbandry and in horticulture the selection of stock for propagation and the act of insemination by natural or artificial means is called breeding. See Selective breeding and Artificial selec maturity at about 4 or 5 years of age, and breed every 2 to 3 years. Black bears breed in the spring, usually in May and June, but the embryos do not begin to develop until the mother dens in the fall to hibernate through the winter months. However, if food was scarce and the mother has not gained enough fat to sustain herself during hibernation as well as produce cubs, the embryos do not implant (develop).

Black bear cubs are generally born in January or February. The blind cubs weigh about 1/2 to 3/4 of a pound (250 to 350 g) [**** this contradicts previous statement that they weigh a pound ****] at birth, and twins are most common. By spring thaw, when the bears start leaving their dens, the cubs are fur-balls of energy, inquisitive and playful. They are weaned between July and September of their first year, and stay with the mother through the first full winter. They are usually independent by the second winter.

Cub survival is totally dependent on the skill of the mother in teaching her cubs what to eat, where and how to forage (find food), where to den, and when and where to seek shelter from heat or danger.

Black bears eat a wide variey of foods, relying most heavily on grasses, herbs, fruits, and mast. They also feed on carrion and insec ts such as

carpenter ants (Campanotus spp.)
yellow jackets (Vespula spp.)
bees (Apidae)
termites (Isoptera).

Black bears sometimes kill and eat small rodents and ungulate fawn s.

Some common plant foods are listed below:

oak ( Quercus spp.) mast
hazel ( Corylus spp.) mast
mountain ash ( Sorbus spp.)
tree cambium
dogwood (Cornus spp.)
manzanita
kinnikinnick ( Arctostaphylos spp.)
cranberry ( Vibernum spp.)
blueberry
huckleberry ( Vaccinium spp.)
raspberry
blackberry ( Rubus spp.)
rose hips (Rosa spp.)
gooseberry (Ribes spp.)
sarsaparilla (Aralia nudicaulis)
rhubarb (Polygonum alaskanum)
lupine (Lupinus spp.)
northern bedstraw (Galium boreale)
lousewort (Pedicularis spp.)
Labrador tea (Ledum groenlandicus)
California coffeeberry (Rhamnus californicus)
squawroot (Conopholis americana)
dandelion (Taraxacum officinale)
clover (Trifolium spp.)
thistle (Cirsium spp.)
buffaloberry (Shepherdia canadensis)
lomatium (Lomatium spp.)
cowparsnip (Heracleum lanatum)
pine nuts.

Black bears also eat salmon (Oncorynchus spp.) and raid orchards, beehives, and crop fields. They pick from garbage dumps and trash bins of private homes. Black bears may occasionally prey on domestic sheep and pigs when their natural foods are scarce.

Black bear predators include man, the brown bear (Ursus arctos), and other Black Bears. Coyotes (Canis latrans) may prey on cubs.

Black bears are as much an important game species as they are the center of controversy across the continent. Because their behavior has been little understood, Black bears have been feared and hated. They have also been portrayed as harmless play toys by film and television. Their low reproductive rate and late sexual maturation make them vulnerable to overharvest. Their active foraging habits and habitat encroachment by man have created man-bear conflicts

3 Taxonomy and subspecies ranges

The American Black Bear is classified as being in the class Mammalia, order Carnivora and family Ursidae.

Currently accepted subspecies (with their respective ranges) include:

Ursus americanus altifrontalis	the Pacific Northwest coast from central British Columbia through northern California and inland to the tip of northern Idaho and British Columbia
Ursus americanus amblyceps	Colorado, New Mexico, west Texas and the eastern half of Arizona into northern Mexico; southeastern Utah
Ursus americanus americanus	from eastern Montana to the Atlantic; from Alaska south and east through Canada to the Atlantic and south to Texas
Ursus americanus californiensis	the Central Valley of California, north through southern Oregon
Ursus americanus carlottae	Queen Charlotte Islands and Alaska
Ursus americanus cinnamomum	Idaho, western Montana, and Wyoming, eastern Washington and Oregon, northeastern Utah
Ursus americanus emmonsii	southeastern Alaska
Ursus americanus eremicus	northeastern Mexico
Ursus americanus floridanus	Florida, southern Georgia and Alabama
Ursus americanus hamiltoni	the island of Newfoundland
Ursus americanus kermodei	the central coast of British Columbia
Ursus americanus luteolus	eastern Texas, Louisiana, southern Mississippi
Ursus americanus machetes	north-central Mexico
Ursus americanus perniger	Kenai Peninsula, Alaska
Ursus americanus pugnax	Alexander Archipelago, Alaska
Ursus americanus vancouveri	Vancouver Island, British Columbia

4 Current legal protections

Today, a major threat to the American black bear is widespread poaching, or illegal killing, to supply Asian markets with bear gall bladders and paws, considered to have medicinal value in China, Japan, and Korea. The demand for these parts also affects grizzly and polar bears. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (also known as CITES), a treaty among more than 120 nations, provides measures to curb illegal trade in wildlife and wildlife products across international boundaries, helping to protect the black bear from poaching.

While black bears are abundant in most parts of the West, some Eastern populations are at critically low levels. Two subspecies found in the southeastern U.S., the Louisiana black bear and the Florida black bear, still face decline mainly due to habitat loss and degradation.

In 1992, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listed the Louisiana black bear as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act, meaning it could become in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range in the foreseeable future. The American black bear also is protected by the Act in the affected states (Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas) due to its close resemblance to this subspecies. The Florida black bear is a candidate for protection under the Endangered Species Act.

5 Miscellaneous

The Black Bear is the mascot of the University of Maine.
Ursus americanus kermodei, commonly known as the "Spirit Bear", is a rare white (not albino) subspecies found in temporate rain forests on the Pacific northwest coast of North America. Native tradition credits these animals with supernatural powers.
In August 2004, a wild black bear was found passed out drinking about 36 cans of stolen beer in Baker Lake, Washington , U.S. The bear opened a camper's cooler and used its claws and teeth to puncture the cans. It was found the bear selectively opened cans of Rainier Beer and left all Busch Beer unconsumed.

6 External links

Bears

<Hide>

Home > American Black Bear