The North American Black Bear

What Family Does The N.A. Black Bear Belong:

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Carnivora
Family: Ursidae

The N.A. Black Bear, the most common of all bears, and the smallest of the North American bear, is still a big game animal who lives in most states and provinces in the U.S. and Canada.

You may have heard them called the ‘clown of the woods’. If you didn’t know why it’s because they can be so amusing while they play around in their habitat. They can act like little kids but remember they are still a dangerous and wild animal so don’t decide that you could go play with them.

Most people in the world have only ever seen black bear on TV or in a zoo, which is kind of sad isn’t it. Although when black bear hunting season takes some of the female black bears with cubs, even if it’s by accident those cubs don’t really stand a chance and either die or are killed by other predators or they end up in the zoo.

The average weight of a N.A. black bear is somewhere between 200 to 350 pounds, but is seldom longer than 6 1/2 feet. Anything beyond that would be classified as a trophy black bear.

I was fishing for Atlantic salmon one fine fall day and turned around to see what I thought was a small black bear sitting there watching me but when it turned and walked back into the bush I could see that it was much bigger than I had thought. Don’t be deceived by black bear that look small, they are still dangerous.

What do Black Bear look like?

Black Bear have short legs with clawed feet and a small stubby tail and for most times of the year are rather heavy set and thick looking. They have a long nose or snout with a set of canine teeth for chomping down meat and flat molars to grind the other foods they eat.

Black bear will eat anything their powerful jaws can handle and that doesn’t leave much out of their diet. They are known as omnivorous because they are opportunistic feeders.

What’s in their diet?

Black bears will feast on other animals, usually the dead kind, but will take down a moose or a deer if hungry enough. They espeically love fish, salmon being one of their favorite, as it’s a great way to put on the pounds they need to survive the winter months. They also eat all kinds of plant matter that is available at any given time like fruits and berries, various grasses & roots, honey, insects.

Knowing how to handle a bear hunt situation can be crucial to success or possible going home empty handed. If you haven’t had a lot of experience with black bear hunting, this type of situation could cost you a beautiful trophy bear. Usually, it is a senior adult male bear that will stand up inspect a suspicious situation. The young black bears are careless, and like all species haven’t adapted yet.

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The Black bear, or Ursus americanus to scientists, is the most common species of bear in North America. If you go camping somewhere in the United States, Mexico or Canada and you see a bear, chances are you’re looking at a black bear.

And with the recent tragedy of the Clyde family and an assault by a black bear in Tennessee, it makes sense to approach them with respect and caution.

Compared to other American bears, black bears are smaller and more agile, usually weighing from 150-300 pounds, though they can sometimes weigh much more. While they are often black, black bears also come in dark brown and even grayish shades. They are almost always smaller and less furry than their brown bear cousins, and lack the distinctive shoulder hump of the grizzly.

Like most bears, the black bear is an omnivore and will eat virtually anything it can get its paws on, though black bears tend to eat more vegetation than their cousins. Roots, seeds, grasses, berries, leaves, twigs, sometimes even bark and the inner parts of trees will make up most of the bear’s diet throughout the year. Black bears will also eat a variety of insects, smaller mammals, and are good at catching fish.

Black bears are not particularly aggressive or violent towards people. In many areas, bears are actually quite tame and unafraid of us, and will even be found begging for scraps along the sides of roads. Though their vision is only average, they have an amazing sense of smell, and have a knack for getting into places they shouldn’t be, like cars, gardens or dumpsters.

If you are going to be camping in an area where there are black bears, just make sure you don’t leave any food in a place you wouldn’t want a bear to get to. For example, never store opened food items inside your tent. Any food items that are exposed to the sense of smell should be kept tightly sealed, hung from a tree, or at the very least a good distance away from your campsite.

My only experience with black bears occurred while I was backpacking with friends in Yosemite. The campsite we reached on the first night was crawling with black bears. Though we were a little nervous at first, it was soon clear they weren’t going to bother us, so we set up camp as planned. As soon as we began cooking dinner, however, we found ourselves with a good-sized bear audience.

For the most part they kept their distance, but when we weren’t looking they’d creep closer and closer to get a better look and smell for what we were making. As soon as we looked over at them, they’d turn away and pretend like they weren’t really interested, feigning interest in some twig instead. When we woke the next morning, we discovered the bears had licked all our dishes completely clean.

Although the experience I had was actually quite humorous, black bears are certainly capable of causing great bodily injury to you if they feel threatened. Its never a good idea to approach a bear, and if you see bear cubs you should stay far away because there is a very good chance they have a protective mother nearby.