Black Bears: The Most Common Bear in North America

Live Science

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

00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:03 American black bears are the most common bear

00:08 in North America and can be found from northern Mexico

00:10 through the US to northern Canada.

00:12 [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:16 They are smaller than polar bears and brown bears,

00:18 which also makes them the smallest of North America's

00:21 three bears.

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00:24 Black bears are about three feet tall at the shoulder

00:27 when standing on all fours and up to seven feet tall

00:29 when standing upright on two legs.

00:31 [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:33 Males can be up to 60% bigger than females

00:36 and weigh up to 660 pounds.

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00:41 Black bears are usually black, as their name suggests,

00:44 but their coats may also be brown, cinnamon, or even white.

00:51 This coat variation means they're occasionally

00:53 mistaken for brown bears, especially

00:57 where the ranges of the two species overlap.

01:01 To help tell them apart, the US National Park Service

01:04 notes that black bears do not have a pronounced shoulder

01:07 hump like brown bears do, and their shoulders

01:10 are lower than their rumps when standing on all fours.

01:12 [MUSIC PLAYING]

01:15 Black bears also have straighter faces, taller ears,

01:18 and shorter, more curved front claws.

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

01:25 [MUSIC PLAYING]

01:28 Black bears are omnivores, and most of their diet

01:30 is made up of insects, nuts, berries, grasses,

01:37 and other vegetation.

01:41 They are not active predators and only

01:42 hunt mammals such as young deer when

01:44 the opportunity presents itself.

01:47 But a black bear is no slouch either

01:50 and can run at up to 35 miles per hour if needed.

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01:55 Bears often avoid encounters with people

01:57 and do not normally harm humans.

02:00 However, they occasionally attack

02:02 to defend their cubs or food and, on extremely rare occasions,

02:06 kill humans to eat them.

02:09 Even so, bears have far more reason to fear humans.

02:14 Black bears and the forest they lived in

02:16 rapidly declined after Europeans settled in North America,

02:20 and they are still regularly hunted by humans today.

02:24 However, greater protections has enabled the bear population

02:27 to slowly recover.

02:28 [MUSIC PLAYING]

02:32 American black bears are not currently

02:33 threatened with extinction, and their population

02:35 is estimated to be twice as large as all other bear

02:38 populations on Earth.

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02:56 (upbeat music)

02:59 (upbeat music)

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