Stephen R. Swinburne - Black Bear: North Americas Bear

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brown

The bear hunkers low over the protein-rich sunflower seeds, shielding his booty like a child protecting a new toy. Sunflower seeds have twice the calories per gram of beechnuts or acorns. The animal uses its long tongue to painstakingly extract the seeds from the mat of grass. We can hear the rhythmic chuffing of the bears breathing and the contented sound of bear teeth chomping against seed. The bear remains still, head down, eating for nearly twenty minutes. Only once does it lift its head to look at us.

I continue watching the bear in the fading twilight. Its a beautiful animalbig, wild, and free. Ive seen black bears many times in my life, but Im always amazed at their size and power and how quickly they can move. Black bears can run fastup to thirty miles per hourfor short periods. I remember driving a thickly wooded road in Vermont in early June when a half-mile up ahead I saw a large black bear. When I reached the place where the bear crossed the road, there was no sign of it. The forest had swallowed it whole. But on the other side of the road, where the bear had come from, there was plenty of sign of black bear. A massive beaver lodge the size of a large living room lay demolished. Logs and branches, thick and thin, lay strewn like a thrown fistful of pick-up sticks. I reasoned the bear had torn apart the lodge searching for young beavers to eat.

Eating. When a bear isnt sleeping or playing its usually eating. Its one of the things bears do best. They eat whatever is available at different times of the year. Black bears will kill and eat small prey, such as deer fawns, and will also scavenge on animal carcasses. They relish ants and bees. Yet nuts (acorns, beechnuts), fruits (blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, apples, mountain ash), leaves, and roots form about 80 percent of a black bears diet.

Our Adirondack bear has done a good job of vacuuming the spilled sunflower seeds from the ground. In the soft light from the lodges windows I can see the bear finally move. It sniffs the ground for any missed seed. Then it turns and, led by its nose, saunters off into the forest.

Despite its teddy bear image and the raids on our backyard bird feeders and garbage cans, the black bear is at home in the woods. It is a wild creature that has evolved in its natural habitat over hundreds of thousands of years. The bear has lived here a lot longer than we have. Its home is in these Adirondack Mountains and in forests across much of North America. And as I go back to my trout dinner, I sense these woods are richer knowing that black bears live here. I may never see that bear again, but Im happy knowing its out there as my wild neighbor.