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. They are smaller than polar bears and brown bears,

00:18which also makes them the smallest of North America's three bears. Black bears are about

00:25three feet tall at the shoulder when standing on all fours and up to seven feet tall when

00:29standing upright on two legs. Males can be up to 60% bigger than females and weigh up to 660 pounds.

00:38Black bears are usually black, as their name suggests, but their coats may also be brown,

00:45cinnamon or even white. This coat variation means they're occasionally mistaken for brown bears,

00:54especially where the ranges of the two species overlap. To help tell them apart, the US National

01:03Park Service notes that black bears do not have a pronounced shoulder hump like brown bears do,

01:08and their shoulders are lower than their rumps when standing on all fours. Black bears also have

01:16straighter faces, taller ears and shorter, more curved front claws. They use these claws to scale trees and

01:24access food. Black bears are omnivores and most of their diet is made up of insects, nuts, berries, grasses,

01:36and other vegetation. They are not active predators and only hunt mammals such as young deer when the

01:44opportunity presents itself. But 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.

01:58However, they occasionally attack to defend their cubs or food and, on extremely rare occasions,

02:06kill humans to eat them. Even so, bears have far more reason to fear humans.

02:14Black bears in the forest they lived in rapidly declined after Europeans settled in North America,

02:19and they are still regularly hunted by humans today.

02:22However, greater protections has enabled the bear population to slowly recover.

02:32American black bears are not currently threatened with extinction,

02:34and their population is estimated to be twice as large as all other bear populations on earth.

02:52American black bears are about now.

03:01American black bears are considered to fight terrified by humans.

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03:10in our state.

03:10American black bears are also beaten by humans.

03:12American black bears are already the white山 and collective of 빨 bargains.

03:14American black bears have been heard of factories on state.

03:16American black bears.

03:17American black bears have been or of course West Virginia.

03:20American black bears.