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![[Photo of bear]](images/pic2.jpg)
Seeing a black bear can be one of the most memorable experiences of a wilderness vacation. Bears seem almost human at times, partly because of their high intelligence and partly because they can stand and sit like we do. Their diet is also somewhat like ours, so fruit and nut shortages are problems for them just as they were for primitive people. In years of crop failure, black bears are almost as quick as chipmunks to overcome their fear of people and seek out food. And they are extremely adept at getting it. They have color vision, acute hearing, and a keen sense of smell. They learn quickly and can remember feeding locations for years. They can climb trees, bend open car doors, and pry out windshields. They readily swim to island campsites. They adapt their lifestyles to the availability of food, often becoming nocturnal to avoid confrontations with us rather than sleeping at night like they usually do.
![[Photo of swimming bear]](images/pic3.jpg) |
| Black bears can swim to island campsites. |
The best way to prevent food pilfering in bear country is to avoid the bears. That means by-passing campsites with bear tracks, fecal droppings, and scattered garbage. Bears are regular visitors there. But if you must camp at such sites, keep a clean camp. The less food odor in your camp the less chance the bears will linger when they make their rounds. Wash dishes immediately and dump the water away from the camp. Completely burn any edible garbage, including grease, rather than burying it or throwing it in a latrine.
Most black bears will not enter a tent with people in it, but it is still a good idea to keep food and food odors out of tents and sleeping bags. To be on the safe side, wash food from your face and hands before going to bed and hang clothing beyond reach of bears if it has food or cooking grease on it. Perfume may mask human odor, preventing bears from knowing a person is in the tent.
Bear proof food lockers and portable bear proof containers provide the best protection for your food but are not yet available everywhere. The next best thing is to store food in the trunk of your automobile or in sealed plastic bags suspended from a line between two trees.
Lines or horizontal poles 20 feet above the
ground have been installed at some bear-prone campsites. Sling the food bags over the line
or pole so they hang 5 feet below it, at least 10 feet from the nearest tree trunk, and at
least 12 feet above the ground. Bears have been known to leap from tree trunks to snatch
food bags, and large black bears can reach up nearly 9 feet without jumping. Slinging the
bag over a branch rather than a line or pole is even less likely to stop a bear; bears can
break small branches and climb out on large ones. If a branch must be used, sling the bag
far out on the tip of a branch larger than 4 inches in base diameter. Bears sometimes chew
through ropes to get hanging food bags, so it is best to counterbalance the bag with a
second one to avoid tying the rope where a bear can bite it. To retrieve counterbalanced
bags, use a long stick to push one bag up so the other will descend to within reach.
Where bears already know about food being hung, hanging it might be only a delaying tactic to give you time to personally protect it. Pans hung on the food bag so they will rattle if a bear shakes it can alert you. Non-burnable garbage should also be hung and should be packed out when you leave.
Bears learn that coolers, backpacks, food bags, and other containers might contain food. Keeping empty containers out of sight (in a car trunk or away from camp) or leaving them open so bears can easily determine they are empty will reduce property damage. If the containers smell of food, hang them with the plastic food bags to prevent bears from carrying them off. Food odors in empty containers are minimized if the food was packed in plastic bags that can be taken out of the containers and hung. When leaving camp, tie tent flaps open so bears can easily check inside.
A black bear in camp requires caution but is not cause for great alarm. Most are timid enough to be scared away by yelling, waving, and banging pans. But a few are too accustomed to people to be bothered. Many people have lost their food and vacation by being timid. Campers experienced with black bears simply chase them away before the bears settle in to eating a week's supply of vacation food. They make sure the bear has a clear escape route and then yell, wave, and rush to no nearer than 15 feet of the bear. This is especially effective when several people do it together. If alone, a person might create the illusion of numbers by throwing sticks through the underbrush. Don't feed the bears or try to pet them. Touching a wild bear can elicit a nip or cuff.
![[Photo of fleeing mother bear and cubs]](images/pic5.jpg) |
| Black bear mothers sometimes bluff-charge but rarely attack people. They usually run away. |
A recent study by the National Park Service showed that bears sometimes are harder to chase after they have begun eating. Some bears in that study gave low intensity threats when people slowly approached closer than 15 feet, but all bears that were chased retreated. No visitors were attacked. People are often more timid at night, but bears retreat at night as well as by day. Capsaicin spray repellent usually persuades black bears to leave when it is sprayed into their eyes. Capsaicin, the active ingredient of cayenne peppers, has long been used by mailmen as a dog repellent. In more than 200 trials, no bear gave any sign of anger after being sprayed, sometimes repeatedly. Most immediately turned and ran, stopping eventually to rub their eyes. The repellent irritates the eyes for several minutes but causes no injury.
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| Black bears usually run away when people chase them or spray Capsaicin in their eyes. |
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Black bears can injure or kill people, but they rarely do. When pressed, they usually retreat, even with cubs. Attacking to defend cubs is more a grizzly bear trait. (Grizzlies live only in Alaska, northern and western Canada, and the Rocky Mountains south to Yellowstone.) Black bear mothers often leave their cubs and flee from people, and those that remain are more likely to bluff-charge than attack. Still, it is prudent to use extra caution with family groups that allow close approaches because mothers are generally more nervous than other bears. Nevertheless, chances of being attacked around campsites by any black bear are small. During a 19-year study of bear/camper encounters in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in Minnesota, only two injuries were reported in 19 million visitor-days. The study included the year 1985 when bear nuisance activity was at a record high. The two injuries were by one bear on September 14 and 15, 1987. The bear was killed the next day.
![[Photo of a brown black bear]](images/pic7.jpg) |
| Both black bears and grizzlies can be brown, but no grizzlies live east of the Rocky Mountains |
Unprovoked, predatory attacks by black bears are rare but highly publicized. Such attacks have accounted for all 23 deaths by non-captive black bears across North America this century. Most occurred in remote areas where the bears had little or no previous contact with people, rather than in and around established campsites. The worst attack occurred in Ontario in 1978 when a black bear killed and partially consumed three teenagers who were fishing. Predatory attacks by black bears are usually done without bluster or warning. People involved in such attacks can improve their chances by fighting rather than playing dead. Deaths from such attacks average a little more than one every four years across the United States and Canada.
![[Photo of a standing bear]](images/pic8.jpg) |
A sign of curiosity, not anger, standing helps bears see and smell. |
By comparison, a person is about 180 times more likely to be killed by a bee than by a black bear and 160,000 times more likely to die in a traffic accident. Each year there are many thousands of encounters between black bears and people, often unknown to the people because the bears slip away so quietly. Menstrual odors have been shown to be attractive to bears, but there is no record of a black bear attacking a menstruating woman.
Dozens of minor injuries, some requiring stitches, have occurred across North America when people petted or crowded black bears they were feeding or photographing. Under those circumstances, black bears may react to people as they do to bears with bad manners, by nipping or cuffing with little or no warning. Also, people who tease bears with food have been accidentally injured when the bear quickly tried to take it. Fortunately, black bears usually use at least as much restraint with people as they do with each other. Unlike domestic dogs, which often are territorial and aggressive toward strangers, black bears typically behave as the subordinate toward people when escape is possible.
![[Photo of man teasing bear with food]](images/pic9.jpg) |
| Most injuries from black bears are minor and result from feeding, crowding, or petting. Most bears will not come this close. If one does, teasing it with food is especially risky. |
Black bears that want our food sometimes use threats or bluffs to get it, as has been reported by campers, picnickers, and backpackers. The most common behavior of this sort is blowing, which may be accompanied by clacking teeth, lunging, laid back ears, slapping the ground or trees, and/or a short rush. The same behavior is used to scare other bears from feeding areas. The sounds and actions are all done explosively, with effective results. However, it is rare for a black bear to attack a person during or after such a demonstration. All blowing bears observed by the author retreated when pursued. A less common sound is the resonant "voice" of a bear. This is used to express intense emotions (fear, pain, and pleasure), including strong threats. Black bears with ready escape routes seldom use this threat toward people. Grunts are used in non-threatening communication to cubs, familiar bears, and sometimes people.
Encounters with bears are remembered and retold for years to come. Most campers in black bear country never see a bear. Seeing one is proof that we still have extensive enough forests for this wide-ranging animal. Keeping a clean camp helps to insulate bears from the effects of our increasing use of the wilderness for recreation and helps prevent bears from being needlessly relocated or killed as nuisances.
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| Text and photos by Lynn L. Rogers. (Information and reviews for this brochure were obtained from Federal, State, and Provincial biologists, university researchers, and managers of national parks and forests throughout the United States and Canada). |
Grizzly
Bear Habitat
Wildlife habitat is the environment that
provides the essentials of food, cover, and space to a population of animals. These
essentials are needed for reproduction, maintenance and growth of both the individual
animal and the population. Grizzly bears have their own specific habitat requirements. In
areas with very low levels of 
human development
and activity, grizzly bear use of habitat corresponds to a large extent to the location of
concentrated seasonal food sources. Ecological studies of grizzly bears in the Central
Rockies Ecosystem have shown that grizzly bears use certain favorite plant and animal
foods and will shift from one area to another in response to their seasonal abundance.
When grizzly bears come out of their dens in late March and April, food is localized and hard to come by. Some bears routinely travel to areas where they know there are carcasses of hoofed animals such as elk and moose. These areas include the winter range of these animals, railway tracks and roadsides, and the base of avalanche slopes where these animals may have been swept to their deaths. Other foods eaten by grizzly bears in early spring include the fresh shoots of grasses, the Hedysarum plant or "bear roots" , and overwintered bearberries that have fermented and have a high sugar content. All of these food sources occur in greatest abundance on steep south-facing slopes, usually at lower elevations.
A little later in the spring, during May and early June, grizzly bears concentrate their activities in river valley bottoms. Bears will eat lots of the tips of the primitive plant called horsetail which is high in crude protein. Horsetail is usually found in mature stands of spruce forest along streams and rivers. Hedysarum roots are excavated along the levees of braided stream channels of larger river systems. Bears continue to find big game carcasses in these habitats and, in some cases, they will even hunt for elk and moose calves.
In late June, the horsetail has grown too fibrous and woody, and grizzly bears start to seek out lush areas of vegetation that have developed more slowly. These areas include high elevation avalanche slopes, groundwater seepage areas, and smaller stream courses at upper elevations. Typical foods in these areas are Cow Parsnip, Glacier lily, Spring Beauty, Valerian, and a variety of grasses. Hedysarum roots are eaten in mid-summer but not nearly as much as in the spring and fall. The larvae of ants and wasps are eaten wherever bears can find dried out logs and rocks to flip.
Usually in early August, bears start to shift their diet to berries. At this time, some grizzly bears have been known to eat more than 200,000 berries in one day. On the drier east front of the Rocky Mountains, the buffaloberry is by far the most favoured berry. The most productive areas for buffaloberries are in open Lodgepole Pine forests in valley bottoms where soils are well drained and canopies are relatively open. In areas close to or west of the Continental Divide, grizzly bears eat blueberries and huckleberries during the months of August and September. These berries are prone to early fall frosts and bears are forced to switch to berries that stay on branches in spite of cold weather. These berries include Crowberry, Low bush Cranberry, and Mountain Ash. Ground squirrels are sought out in September when they are fat and slow. The diggings for ground squirrels are large and often trench-like. They reveal the large amount of effort that grizzly bears are willing to expend for this source of protein and minerals. During fall most grizzly bears supplement their berry diet with Hedysarum roots and even the nuts of Whitebark Pine trees.
When the opportunity arises, bears will eat human food and garbage -- the "junk food" of their diet. They do so because of their large body size and huge appetites for high energy foods. Human food and garbage can be highly accessible and are found in predictable places. As is often the case, bears that become conditioned to these food sources present a threat to human safety and are usually translocated of destroyed.
Grizzly bears need a great deal of space
to provide for their habitat needs. In order to access seasonally abundant and widely
dispersed foods, grizzly bears must travel great distances. Grizzly bears that live in
less productive habitat require much larger areas to feed in. The home range of grizzly
bears in the Central Rockies Ecosystem are quite large, from 200 to 500 sq. km. for
females and from about 1000 to 2000 sq. km. for males. Home range size in this region
indicates that food sources are widely dispersed throughout the landscape rather than
concentrated in local areas.
Not only do grizzly bears need large areas to live in, they need space with limited human access. Secure habitat where human activity is minimal allows grizzly bears to be 100% effective in their use of the landscape. Human activities and developments can make even the most productive habitat less attractive to a bear. As a result, grizzly bears will either live in these areas under stressful conditions or they will avoid them entirely. Overall, human developments and activities make habitat less effective in supporting the needs of bears.
In areas where grizzly bears may frequently encounter humans, they need tree and shrub cover that allows them to escape human detection and avoid close encounters. The alternative to avoiding humans is to become habituated and tolerant of their presence. Unfortunately, proximity to humans tends to increase the chance that a bear will be killed by humans. Bears also use the cover provided by closed-canopy forests to take refuge from the heat and to bed down for periods of the day.
ESGBP has conducted a lot of research into the nature of grizzly bear habitat. Habitat maps have been produced that give us an impression of the overall quality and availability of habitat in the Central Rockies Ecosystem. Large-scale vegetation maps have revealed that grizzly bear habitat in the Central Rockies Ecosystem is patchy and occurs primarily in valley bottoms and mountain slopes. This patchiness has produced a naturally fragmented landscape where much of the area inhabited by grizzly bears consists of rock and ice. Researchers have also studied actual bear use of the landscape by visiting places where radio-collared grizzly bears have been located. Field researchers record the abundance of bear foods and the availability of cover for grizzly bears at these locations. In the near future, ESGBP will use both the bear use data and the habitat maps to get a really good feel for the specific habitat needs of grizzly bears in the Central Rockies Ecosystem in light of pressures from human development and activity.
When it's springtime in the Rockies, grizzly bears begin their mating rituals. The whole mating process starts in mid-May to mid-June. From afar, scientists have watched grizzly bear courtship and copulation in the wild. They believe that in springtime, females leave scent trails for wandering males to follow. Such trails may be the key to finding a female bear in areas where grizzly populations are at very low densities. Such is the case in the Central Rockies Ecosystem where there is only 1 bear for every 50 to 100 sq. km. When a male finds a female, the process of getting to know one another begins. At any other time of the year, grizzly bears are solitary creatures that will avoid close encounters with other bears, especially large adult males. During mating season, however, solitary bears let down their guard a little although not for long.
Not surprisingly, male and female grizzly bears usually spend at least a few days testing one another before mating occurs. This type of interaction is important when getting to know an animal that is strong enough to injure or even kill you. The two bears may chase each other, play fight or even nuzzle and lick each other once they are aquainted. The outcome of this process may be rejection or the formation of a pair bond that lasts from several days to a couple of weeks.
In Banff and Waterton Lakes
National Parks, researchers have observed an amazing mating ritual. Male grizzly bears
have been seen "herding" females onto mountain tops. In doing so, a male is able
to isolate a female so that her scent does not attract other bears. In Banff National
Park, a male bear kept a female confined within a 2 to 3 hectare mating area for 13 days.
On occasion, the female bear tried to escape but the persistent male cut her off and sent
her back up the ridge.
At first, a male's approaches are rejected by the female with paw swats, charges or bites. Eventually, repeated copulation occurs over a few days. The adult male is 1.5-2.0 times larger than the female and mounts her from the rear. At first, copulation may last a few minutes but there may be several bouts that last up to one hour.
Shortly after these prolonged copulations, the male and female separate. The female will likely become pregnant but this does not necessarily mean she will have cubs the following spring. Grizzly bears have developed a process called delayed implantation. At first, the embryo floats freely in the female bear’s uterus and its development is delayed. Sometime in the fall, the female's body senses whether she will be able to store enough fat reserves to support herself and her cub over the winter. If she can, the embryo is implanted in the uterine wall and it begins to grow. If her energy stores are low, the embryo is reabsorbed by her body and she will not give birth to cubs the following spring.
At this time, the male grizzly bear has no further association with the female. The female may mate with other males but the period of reproductive readiness is brief. If she does mate again, and her fat stores are adequate, she may even give birth to several cubs from different fathers. This explains why cubs from the same litter can look very different from one another. In about 1.5 to 4.5 years, the cubs will leave their mother’s side. At this time the female grizzly bear is free to embark on the whole mating ritual again.
In the middle of winter, grizzly bear cubs are born as their mother remains sluggish and inactive in her long winter’s sleep. In their snow-covered dens, female grizzly bears give birth to between 1 and 4 tiny immature cubs. Newly born cubs have little hair on their bodies and weigh about half a kilogram. The tiny cubs snuggle up against their mother’s warm body and periodically suckle her fat-rich milk.
The cub’s eyes won’t open for
another 3 weeks. When they do, the only world they will see and experience for the next
few months is the world inside their den. By mid-April to early May, the mother bear and
cubs will venture outside their den for the first time. The mother grizzly is still very
sluggish at this time while her 3 to 4
kilogram cubs come out of the den like wound up springs suddenly
uncoiled. They run and jump on each other, and will sometimes use snowy avalanche chutes
as slides. At this stage, the cubs still depend on their mother’s milk for
nourishment, which places major energetic demands on her. The bear family may stay near
their winter den for the next few weeks and will sometimes sleep inside.
Once they leave the den site, the cubs are seldom more than a few hundred metres from their mother. Even though female bears are very focused mothers, most cubs don’t survive to become adults. A number of factors affect a cubs ability to survive its first few years of life. Other bears, in particular adult males, pose a serious threat to cub survival. Mother grizzly bears will take their cubs to remote areas or places where the habitat is less productive and less likely to attract other bears. In some cases, mother bears will even take refuge in areas of high human activity that are often avoided by large adult males. Unfortunately, this can put the bear family at risk of conflict with humans.
After about 1½ to 4½ years, the surviving cubs of a litter will separate from their mother. Young female bears won’t be ready to reproduce until they are 6 to 7 years of age. Once they are ready, they will only reproduce on average every 4 years. These biological traits, in combination with the low survival rate of cubs, make grizzly bears very susceptible to population decline. Since the initiation of the project, ESGBP researchers have monitored the reproductive rate of study area bears. Since 1993, a total of 39 unduplicated counts of female grizzly bears with cubs of the year have been made in the Bow River watershed. With enough counts, researchers can make estimates of population trends that can be used to gauge the effects of human-caused bear mortality and disturbance over the long term.
| - Make noise on the trail.
|
![[Photo of black bear]](images/pic1.jpg)
![[Photo of man spraying bear]](images/pic6-2.jpg)
![[Photo of fleeing bear]](images/pic6-1.jpg)
![[Photo of mother bear with cub]](images/pic10.jpg)