Black Bears (Ursus americanus)
The Bear Facts
Black bears disperse seeds and nutrients from the plants and animals they eat, via their scat, across vast distances. Their strong olfactory sense helps them locate food miles away. A “facultative carnivore,” their diet consists mostly of vegetation such as grasses, tree sap, berries, and nuts. Rarely, bears will kill small mammals. Bears also scavenge carrion like ravens, coyotes, skunks, and raccoons.
Black bears come in a variety of colors, including brown, cinnamon and blonde (which results in them often being mistaken for grizzly bears). Habitat generalists, black bears can live anywhere sufficient food is available—from Arizonan deserts to Canadian coniferous forests. In Colorado, black bears occur mostly in moderate elevations where berries and oakbrush abound. Partly due to a five-year drought cycle in the West, bears have come into frequent contact with people as they are driven into more populated areas in their search for food.
Black bears range widely; they need room to roam. Except during mating and when a mother has cubs (a good deal of her adult life), black bears live solitarily. In Colorado, a female typically does not have cubs until she reaches five years of age. On average, females give birth to two cubs and spend nearly two years raising those cubs. Like mountain lions, black bears are slow to breed and are sensitive to over-hunting.
