Black Bears: The Most Common Bear in North America

American black bears are the smallest and most common bear in North America. They are highly adaptable, with a diet that includes honey and moose.

Transcript

00:00American black bears are the most common bear in North America and can be found from northern

00:10Mexico through the US to northern Canada.

00:14They are smaller than polar bears and brown bears, which also makes them the smallest

00:20of North America's three bears.

00:24Black bears are about three feet tall at the shoulder when standing on all fours and up

00:28to seven feet tall when standing upright on two legs.

00:34Males can be up to 60% bigger than females and weigh up to 660 pounds.

00:41Black bears are usually black, as their name suggests, but their coats may also be brown,

00:47cinnamon or even white.

00:52This coat variation means they are occasionally mistaken for brown bears, especially where

00:57the ranges of the two species overlap.

01:01To help tell them apart, the US National Park Service notes that black bears do not have

01:06a pronounced shoulder hump, like brown bears do, and their shoulders are lower than their

01:11rumps when standing on all fours.

01:15Black bears also have straighter faces, taller ears and shorter, more curved front claws.

01:22They use these claws to scale trees and access food.

01:28Black bears are omnivores and most of their diet is made up of insects, nuts, berries,

01:36grasses and other vegetation.

01:41They are not active predators and only hunt mammals such as young deer when the opportunity

01:44presents itself.

01:46But a black bear is no slouch either and can run at up to 35 miles per hour if needed.

01:55Bears often avoid encounters with people and do not normally harm humans.

01:59However, they occasionally attack to defend their cubs or food and, on extremely rare

02:06occasions, kill humans to eat them.

02:10Even so, bears have far more reason to fear humans.

02:14Black bears and the forests they lived in rapidly declined after Europeans settled in

02:18North America and they are still regularly hunted by humans today.

02:23However, greater protections has enabled the bear population to slowly recover.

02:32American black bears are not currently threatened with extinction and their population is estimated

02:36to be twice as large as all other bear populations on Earth.