Although bears don’t start packing on body fat until fall, it’s never too early to get started.
Watch these bears as they seek out food in this video by BDN contributor Allie Ladd.
As opportunists, bears eat a wide range of plants and animals, although they are primarily vegetarian. They like clover, buds of hardwood trees and early grass in spring, fruits and berries in summer and beechnuts, acorns and hazelnuts in fall, according to the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.
They also eat bugs, including ants and bees, and sometimes mammals and birds. They have been known to eat young deer and moose in the spring and will eat carrion, the MDIF&W website said.
They also love the food sources humans bring into the picture, such as food crops, bird seed and garbage.
Black bears breed from May through August, peaking in June and July. The fetuses don’t start developing until the sow dens in the fall. She gives birth in the spring. Cubs are around 12 ounces when they are born and grow to 4-10 by mid-April, the department says. That’s when mom takes them out of the den.
Black bears pretty much live alone, except for mother and babies and when it’s time to breed again. Boars can have a range of 100 square miles, while sows usually stay in a 6-9 square-mile area. But sows usually have cubs too.
Bears also will travel several miles for a good food source outside of their regular territory.
In years when fall foods are abundant, bears will feed until snow makes it hard to get around, but they usually den by late November. If food is scarce, they will den in October, according to the MDIF&W.
