Critters: Springtime black bears

If you hike enough in the woods of Northwest Montana odds are you will see a black bear. This ubiquitous creature is common across the landscape.

Despite their name, black bears come in different colors, from deep black to light brown and even blond. There have even been a few albino bears seen in the region over the years.

Black bear males can run as much as 250 pounds or more in Northwest Montana, with females being smaller — about 180 pounds.

They’re omnivores, meaning they’ll eat just about anything, including plants and animals. The black bear is easy to confuse with the grizzly bear, but there are some features that distinguish the two species. Black bears don’t have a humped shoulder like a grizzly and their snouts are longer and straighter with longer ears. Their front toes (bears have five toes, just like people) leave an arch in the track on the footpads, while a grizzly’s front paw has a straight line across the pads. The claws of a black bear are also notably shorter than a grizzly.

Bears continue to grow throughout their lives. Favorite black bear foods include berries of all sorts, grubs and insects, such as those found in rotting stumps and both dead and live prey like ground squirrels and elk calves to name a few, though predation on mammals is generally a small part of their diet.

They’re very much opportunistic feeders and when they get in town they’ll often roam neighborhoods, eating fruit off neighborhood fruit trees and unsecured garbage and pet foods, that’s why it’s important to clean up fallen fruit and secure attractants around homes, particularly in the fall. In the fall bears consume huge amounts of calories to fatten up for winter hibernation.

They typically den from late fall to April and early May. In the den they don’t defecate or urinate, and their bodies are able to convert metabolic waste products into proteins. Unlike other hibernators, their body temperatures don’t drop too much — about 3 to 5 degrees and their heart rate will lower about 35%. They can awake from a winter slumber rather quickly as a result.

Black bears den in both holes in the ground, in downfalls and in trees. Hollow cottonwoods are often a favorite den tree. Mating starts in May and can extend until as late as August, but the embryo delays implantation until November and the tiny cubs are born in the den and nurtured by their slumbering mother until spring. Black bears are sexually mature by about age 4 1/2 years. The cub, or more often than not, cubs, stay with their mother the first full year and then disperse the second summer.

Black bears are excellent tree climbers and at the hint of danger, the mother bear will typically send the her cubs flying up the tallest tree.

Bears are solitary creatures and aren’t territorial — their ranges often overlap.

In Northwest Montana black bears are typically not aggressive, though females will protect cubs and should be given a wide berth. Some food-conditioned bears however have attacked people and their have been instances of black bear attacks in the past in places like Glacier National Park, where bear encounters are more frequent. Black bears are a game animal in Montana and there’s both a spring and fall hunting season.

This story was based on information gleaned from “Mammals of Montana by Kerry Forseman.