Our Sunshine Coast Bears

Are all black bears black? 

Not all black bears are black—their fur can range in color from pure white to a cinnamon color to very dark brown or black. Most populations have a mixture of these colors, including the pure white form, which is found in some individuals in the island archipelago in southern British Columbia (Kermodi Island). This white black bear (called a spirit bear, revered by Native Americans) is caused by a recessive gene from both the mother and the father. Genes can also result in the light gray coat color of the blue bear, or glacier bear, in southeastern Alaska. Our Sunshine Coast bears are predominantly black in colour. 

Size and Strength 

Black bears can be approximately 1-2 meters in length weighing approximately 57 – 225 kilograms which accounts in part for their lumbering gait. Despite their size they can run at speeds of up to 45 - 55km/hr. Bears are very powerful having the strength to roll over large logs and boulders when searching for food and they have been known to pry open car doors in order to get to food left in vehicles. 

Because of their size and strength many people fear bears when in fact bears usually have more to fear from a human encounter than humans have to fear from a bear encounter. At times people may confuse black bears with grizzly bears if the black bear happens to be a very large one and having a brownish or cinnamon coloured fur. 

Size isn’t always a reliable indicator as a large black bear can be twice the size of a small grizzly bear. Black bears are shorter and rounder than grizzly bears and have bigger ears and longer faces. 

How large is a bear’s home range? 

Black Bears are the smallest member of the Ursidae family that is found in most regions of North America, and throughout Canada, except in Prince Edward Island. 

Each bear has a home range that overlaps with those of other bears but they do remain largely solitary except during mating season and when mothers are with their cubs.

Black bears use what are known as rub trees to mark their territory and to communicate with other bears. Black bears of all ages and both sexes rub their scent on marking trees, including wooden sign posts and utility poles, but the majority of this marking is by mature males during the mating season. They will also urinate around the base of the tree and make a trail near the tree using the scent glands in their feet.

Scratching the tree bark appears to be another indicator of territory although this behaviour is not completely understood.

A bear’s home range can change in size from year to year depending on the availability of natural food sources and habitat needs. Because of their versatile diet, black bears can live in a variety of habitat types. They inhabit both coniferous and deciduous forests, and can be found along river courses where there is vegetation and trees. Bears need to cover a lot of area to meet their requirements for food especially in times of environmental stress such as droughts. When habitat is less than optimal the home ranges tend to overlap to a greater degree. Although active during the day, bears do most of their long-range roaming at night.

Mothers with cubs tend to have home ranges that are smaller (25 square kms) than males (100 square kms). Those mothers who have cubs of the year do not travel as far as mothers with more mobile yearlings.

Bears that live in coastal areas where food is more abundant have smaller ranges than bears that live in a less productive range such as the Rockies.

Habitat

Our coast bears prefer to live mainly in wooded areas having a moderate density of deciduous and coniferous trees for protection and where sunlight can reach the forest floor resulting in a good selection of shrubs and other foliage for foraging. Where older trees have fallen their degrading stumps are home to protein rich insects such as ants and termites. 

Black bears have an exceptionally good sense of smell and well developed navigational abilities, though the specific mechanisms they use are unknown. These attributes are used in summer and fall when they may migrate more than 100 km to blueberry patches, and other vegetation. 

In the winter months black bears most often choose to den under large boulders, simple depressions under brush, in tree cavities above ground or at the base of a tree, under logs, or even buildings. 

Our coast bears are facing a significant loss of their natural habitat due to logging practices and development leading to an increase of bear activity in our urban areas. The importance of learning to live respectfully and safely with our resident bears cannot be amply emphasized. 

What do Black Bears eat? 

Credited toNorth American Bear Centre: bear.org  and WesternWildlife.org 

Black bears are part of the order Carnivora. All carnivores have sharp elongated canine teeth for tearing, and specifically designed molars for slicing and chewing. 

However unlike most other carnivores black bears function primarily as omnivores feeding mainly on vegetable matter, but they will take advantage if an abundance of fish, insects or a source of meat does become available. Black bears will eat almost anything, such as grubs from a bumblebee nest, bird eggs, ants, voles, grasses and berries. They will also scavenge meat from winter-killed animals, dig for rodents, and eat termites, ants, grubs and other insects. Important sources of protein in the spring may include newborn deer fawns or moose depending on the home range area. 

Bears do not have the ability, like true ruminants such as deer and elk, to digest plant cellulose. They do have an elongated digestive system that enables them to extract more nutrients (proteins, starches and easily digested components) from their vegetable diet than other carnivores. It is for this reason they gravitate to the tender shoots of plants and grasses that emerge in spring. 

Black bears are efficient berry-eaters, consuming up to 30,000 berries a day in a good berry crop year. They gather berries quickly, using their sensitive, mobile lips and swallowing them whole. Bears feed on gooseberries, cranberries, huckleberries, bilberries, blueberries, strawberries, salmonberries and blackberries. 

Black bear feeding on bitter cherries 

Spring Feeding

In spring, bears feed on grasses, dandelions, clover, skunk cabbage and aspen leaves. Leaves and flowers are preferred when they are highest in protein content (shortly after leaf burst or flowering), before the cell walls build up lignin and cellulose and become more difficult to digest. Items eaten in spring are generally predictable in timing of availability and do not vary greatly in abundance from one year to another. 

Pine nuts are another important spring food for black bears due to their high protein content and easy digestibility. The bears just need a bit of assistance to get them. Squirrels collect the pine cones and then bury them in their middens. The bears then dig the cones up and eat the seeds. 

Summer Feeding 

In order to build up the fat layers required to sustain them through the winter, bears need foods with two characteristics. They must be highly nutritious and easily digestible. In the early summer bears have an amazing ability to sense where this foliage will be located. 

During this brief period, the berries have not ripened, and their spring season foods have disappeared. Ant colonies provide major protein sources, as do nests of bumblebees and wasps that are excavated and eaten. 

As they become available berries and other soft fruits are eaten. It is the abundance of summer and fall foods that has the greatest effect on survival and on the proportion of adult females that reproduce successfully. 

Fall Feeding 

Bears may forage up to 20 hours a day during autumn, increasing their body weight by 35% in preparation for winter especially in years when fruit is abundant. During this time they enter ‘hyperphagia’, which literally means “excessive eating.” 

Summer and fall food items vary greatly in timing of availability and in abundance from one year to another. Bears have excellent memories especially in regards to food sources. In fall, hazelnuts, acorns and beechnuts are favoured foods. Bears also like to eat honey and can tear into a tree to get into a beehive while their thick coats protect them from stinging bees. The fact that bears are able to learn about food types and locations, and reapply that knowledge over time and space, is a sure sign of their intelligence. 

If salmon is available black bears catch salmon by waiting below waterfalls or fishing with their claws downstream. They can eat about 15 salmon per day when the salmon are spawning. The desired parts of salmon are the brains, eggs, and back muscles due to the fat and protein concentrations. However with the recent drastic decrease in wild salmon populations this is becoming a food source that makes up less of the bears diet than previous years 

Hibernation 

It is a common misconception that all bears hibernate. In fact, studies now show that most bears enter a prolonged state called torpor (state of mental and physical inactivity) where their body temperatures remain high, but their heart rate slows down to approximately 8 beats per minute. Because they don’t have to normalize their body temperature many bears actually get up and snack during their winter sleep and this also allows them the ability to wake and defend the den and cubs from any outside predator if need be. 

Bears den for varying lengths of time depending on where they live. In warmer climates a bear might spend just a few weeks denning, or sometimes not den at all. By denning during winter bears can avoid this period of food shortage with the fat stores they accumulated in the previous months. 

Bears burn an enormous amount of fat while in the den and produce usable by-products such as water. The kidneys release less waste than during active times of the year, and the small amount that is created is reabsorbed. Bears do not defecate while in hibernation. 

Black bears most often choose to den under large boulders, simple depressions under brush, in tree cavities above ground or at the base of a tree, under logs, or even buildings. Compared to grizzly bears, black bears tend to den at lower elevations and in less steep areas than their grizzly bear cousins. 

Be “Bear Aware” 

If you are recreating in winter months it is good to ask yourself: 
“If I were a bear would I make a den in that location?”

Bears are exceptionally smart and usually prefer to den away from trails and routes that attract human travel.

Remember: 

• Fallen logs are a great place to build a den. If you find a large fallen tree that looks like it has been clawed and shredded, and a large pile resembling a large nest please leave the area as this could be the site of a den. 

• Although people think that waking a sleeping bear will result in an attack, chances are that you are only going to disrupt his/her sleep.   

What does bear poop look like?

Bear poop is referred to as ‘scat’ and may vary in shape and consistency, depending on what the bear has been eating. If the bear has been feeding primarily on moist foods like berries and grass, their poop will be very loose.  

Black Bear Reproduction and Maturation 

Black bear females do not usually reproduce until they are three to five years old but some may be as old as seven when they first produce young. Females normally breed every other year, usually in June and July when males seek out and mate with several females. 

Females conceive during the summer and overall gestation time is 7 to 7 1/2 months. However, impregnated females go through a process called delayed implantation so actual embryo development does not begin until November or December. Cubs are born two months later, in January or February weighing just 225 to 330 grams (1/2 to 3/4 pounds) and measuring about 8 inches long. 

The cubs are blind and deaf, have poorly developed hindquarters, and are covered with fine down-like hair. They suckle frequently from the female in the den and emerge with her in the spring. Cub mortality is high, with an average of 50 percent dying in their first year due to natural causes. The female has 6 nipples, but often only two primary teats produce milk that contains 20 percent fat, compared to human milk which contains only 4 percent fat hence the cubs’ rapid growth. 

The young cubs grow quickly and when the sow and her cubs emerge from the den in April, the cubs can weigh 2.5 – 4 kgs. Although they continue to be nursed throughout their first summer, the cubs also begin eating solid food. Cubs remain with the female for 16 to 18 months during which time she teaches them everything they need to know to survive. Young females are allowed to occupy portions of the mother’s territory, but the males are forced to move on to find their own territory. Female black bears do not mate while rearing young, so may only produce six litters in her lifetime. 

SOME interesting LINKS

• https://wiseaboutbears.org/black-bears/the-bear-family/a-bears-quest-for-food/

• http://westernwildlife.org/black-bear-outreach-project/biology-behavior-3/

• https://www.massaudubon.org/learn/nature-wildlife/mammals/bears/about