The Black Bear

by William H. Wright

Of course we all know that the Black Bear is an hibernating animal. That is to say that in most, if not in all, parts of its widely distributed range, it passes a portion of the year asleep and without food or drink, in a den or some sort of make-shift shelter. We shall have much to say later on about this strange habit, and about some of the queer notions people have about it, but we only mention it here because, since little bears are born during the time their mother is in winter quarters, it is necessary to establish winter quarters for them to be born in.

Black Bear cubs, then, are born in the winter den of the mother some time from the latter half of January to the middle of March, according to the latitude and also according to the altitude of the den. The further north a bear happens to live, and the higher up in the hills it happens to live, the later the spring sets in and so the later the animal comes out of its retirement. And the cubs are born from six weeks to two months before the mother comes out.

The little Black Bears, when first born, are absurdly small and pitifully helpless. Their eyes, like those of puppies and kittens, are shut and do not open for some time. They have no teeth and are almost naked, and although the mother may weigh as much as four hundred pounds or more, the whole litter of cubs does not weigh over a couple of pounds, and single cubs vary from eight to eighteen ounces in weight, according to the number in the litter. A Black Bear will have all the way from one to four cubs at a time, and four is not at all uncommon. I have never seen but two grizzlies with four cubs, but I have seen a great many Black Bears with that many. Three, however, seems to be the common number throughout the Rocky Mountain region. Of course meeting a Black Bear in the woods with only one cub, even in the early spring, does not definitely prove that she only gave birth to one; because the others might have died or have been killed. But the records of Black Bears in captivity show that single cubs are not unknown.

The young cubs at first are delicate and for a week or two the mother never leaves them, but curls around them and keeps them warm and broods them. They seem, however, to have excellent lungs, for one can hear them whimper if one has located a bear’s hiding place and approaches it after the cubs are born, an experience that I have had more than once in the mountains. The Messrs. Lodge, of Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, have supplied their bears with artificial hibernating dens dug in the side of a hill where their bear pit is situated. These are supplied with ventilating shafts, and the owners, for a number of years, have been able to determine the exact date of the birth of a litter, by listening for the querulous voices of the cubs. These gentlemen, by the way, have endeavored in all possible regards to approximate natural conditions in furnishing accommodations for their captive animals; with the result that they have been among the few successful raisers of Black Bears. I will have occasion to refer more than once to the records which these gentlemen have kept during their twenty years’ experience.

For some time, then, after the cubs are born, the family continues shut up in the winter den; but, unlike the grizzly, they frequently, toward the end, leave their shelter before they are ready to abandon it for good. I have seen cases where a Black Bear mother and cubs came out in deep snow, and after wandering about for several miles went back again for a full two weeks before coming out for good. In some cases the mother will come out on these preliminary excursions before the young are able to walk. But they do not either habitually or finally abandon the den until they can get down to the bottoms where the snow is gone and the vegetation has started sprouting. This, by the way, if you happen to live in the neighborhood, is an excellent time to keep a sharp watch on your young pigs.

At this stage the cubs weigh about five or six pounds and, although it is some months before they begin to forage at all for themselves, their development is now much more rapid. I have frequently watched old Black Bears with cubs in the early summer, but have never seen the young ones show any apparent interest in what the mother was eating, and hence I believe that in their natural state they are six or seven months old before they begin the process of being weaned. But although about the time the berries are ripe the cubs take to foraging pretty generally on their own account, they continue to nurse right through the summer and until they either den up with the mother in the fall or, as I think is more usual, until they are turned adrift by her before she herself dens up alone. In fact I have seen them, late in the year, and when they were of a size that should have made them ashamed of such dependence, pestering their mother as she walked, and getting occasional cuffs for their persistence.

Ben showed no concern whatever over grown-up bear dishes until the berry season came around, when he suddenly developed an appetite for outside board, and not only seemed to want all the various things the hills provided, but would howl lustily if he did not get them.

The Black Bear, while not much of a traveller, wanders over a fairly wide range in search of various foods in their season; yet, broadly speaking, is pretty apt to live and die in the general neighborhood of its birth. They wander both day and night, although when they are in a region where grizzlies are also to be found they are careful to disappear about the time that the latter, which are much more nocturnal in habit, may be expected to come out. When a Black Bear has young cubs she will stay for a week or two at a time in one place, and will scratch a nest or bed among the leaves or in a thicket and lie up there between feeds with her youngsters.

There are few things more interesting than to watch a bear with her cubs when she thinks herself alone. They are the gayest and most playful little balls of fur, and she will let them maul her and worry her and pretend to fight her. But a Black Bear does not, as the grizzly does, talk to her cubs all the time. A grizzly will walk along through the woods with two or three cubs carrying on what appears to be a connected conversation. She grunts and whines and makes noises at them that sound as though they were full of advice and admonition. They are doubtless merely encouragement or assurances of her presence. But the Black Bear is silent except in cases of danger or emergency. Then she, too, “speaks” to her youngsters, and they never seem to be at a loss for her meaning. At any rate they go up a tree at the word of command, and come down again at the grunt that means, “All right now, come on.”