American Black Bears

Diet

Black bears eat berries, flowers, grasses, herbs, roots, and nuts. They also eat fish, small animals, ants and other insects, and honey.

Habits

Most black bears hibernate. This means the bear will enter a cave, or dig out a den, and sleep for 4 to 7 months. When the weather is warm, black bears may not hibernate, or, they may nest for a short time.

Black bears like to eat in the evening or in the early morning when it is cool. During the heat of the day, they will often seek shade.

Location (where in the world they are found)

The black bear is found from the Arctic region, through most of Canada and the United States, down to Mexico.

Home (habitat where you find the bear)

Black bears live in forests and open areas such as meadows. Black bears like to live under trees and bushes. They use stream and creek beds as places they can walk and run.

Physical Description (what they look like)

The American black bear is a large mammal. Black bears have a heavy body, short tail, rounded ears, and a hind foot with five toes.

The fur of the black bear can also be light brown, dark brown, cinnamon, beige, and even a blue-white colour.

Adult black bears are 35 to 40 inches tall when on all fours. They are 4 1/2 to 6 feet long. A black bear, can weigh 125 to 600 pounds.

Black bears in the wild can live to be twenty-five years old. They can run over 25 miles per hour.

Population (The number of bears that are alive)

There are 400,000 to 750,000 black bears in North America. There are more American black bears than any other type of bear in North America.

Fun Facts

• The American black bear, is not always black.
• The largest American black bear to date was found in Manitoba, Canada. It weighed 805 pounds.
• Their curved claws are used for tree climbing.
• Black bears have one to four cubs with two cubs being average.
• At birth, cubs are blind, have no hair and are very tiny.

Bear Index	Aquila's Home Page
Revised: 2/10/02	For information, contact John Dyer, Media Specialist, Aquila Primary Center. Copyright © 2002 John H. Dyer. Any use or redistribution of this information without permission is prohibited.