The American black bear is the world’s most common bear species. But in Ohio, they’re endangered.
Black bears are strong distance swimmers, fast runners (35 mph) and with their short, sharp claws, expert tree climbers. While they were once abundant in our state, their skills were no match for unregulated hunting and trapping. With the severe loss of forest habitat, by 1850, they were completely wiped out in Ohio.
Black bear sightings, however, have been increasing since the Ohio Division of Wildlife began tracking sightings again in 1993. Last year, 191 sightings were reported in 45 counties. The majority of these bears are thought to be young males dispersing from Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Kentucky.
Currently, the most likely places to find black bears in the Buckeye state are in northeast Ohio (Ashtabula, Geauga, Lake, Trumbull, and Tuscarawas counties) and southeast Ohio (Washington, Athens, Hocking, and Vinton counties). The Division of Wildlife now relies primarily on public reports of sightings to track black bears in our state. If you see a bear, you can call your local Division of Wildlife district office at 1-800-WILDLIFE or report the bear sighting online. Biologists remind everyone who is lucky enough to spot a black bear to always leave the animal alone and be cautious in vicinities where bear have been sited.
Eat, Prey, Love
Black bears are born blind and tiny, no bigger than a squirrel, but the cubs enter the world inside a cozy den with their furry, protective mom to keep them safe and warm. Although they mate in the summer months, black bears are delayed implanters and implantation of the fertilized egg happens in early December. After a gestation of only six weeks, the female gives birth in January or February. She usually has two cubs but can have up to five in a litter. Although the cubs nurse and grow quickly in the den, the mother does not eat during hibernation – in fact she can go for 100 days without eating, drinking, urinating, or defecating. She lives off a layer of fat that she builds up during the summer and fall. The cubs are ready to venture outside with their mom when they are about three months old. Mother bear is the sole care giver and the cubs stay with her – learning important survival skills – for 18 months or more.
Bears walk like humans on the soles of their feet (called plantigrade) and sit on their tailbones with their legs stretched out in front of them.
According to author Belinda Recio in her book Inside Animal Hearts and Minds, bears “use their front paws in very human-hand-like ways to gather food, throw rocks and snowballs, and create backscratchers from branches. They hum when they’re happy, snore when they’re sleeping, and smile or laugh when relaxing, meeting a friend, playing, or watching other bears play.”
Black bears are intelligent, creative and resourceful and show insight and planning skills. Their sense of smell is seven times better than a bloodhound’s and 100 times better than a person, so it’s no surprise that they live by their noses. They have great memories – handy for remembering the locations of food sources – and have individual personalities.
For black bears, the world is a smorgasbord. Like raccoons, opossums, skunks and people, they are omnivores, which means just about anything goes and they are truly opportunistic eaters. Most of their diet consists of grasses, roots, berries, and insects. They also like fish and small or young mammals – including carrion. And yes – they do love honey!
The mantra “Please Don’t Feed the Bears!” is serious business for bears and people as bears can easily develop a taste for human food and human garbage. A bear that becomes habituated to people often ends up dead as witnessed earlier this summer in Oregon. After a young black bear was fed repeatedly by selfie-taking people against the warnings of local law enforcement, authorities with the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Department were forced to shoot the bear.
The Magnificent Eight
Although fossil records indicate there may have been hundreds of bear species world- wide on all continents except Australia and Antarctica, today only eight species remain (American black, Asiatic black, brown (which includes grizzlies), polar, sloth, panda, sun and spectacled). After the little 60-pound sun bears of Southeast Asia, the black bear is the smallest (150 to 700 lbs.) and is found only in North America. The American black bear lives as far south as central Mexico and as far north as northern Alaska and most of Canada. California, with 25,000 to 35,000 black bears, has the largest population in the contiguous U.S. 
Coming Home
It’s exciting to think about black bears returning to Ohio, and it is indeed possible for bears and humans to coexist peacefully – we just have to learn to be bear-smart. Wildlife officials and bear biologists tell us that the vast majority of human-bear conflicts can be addressed by decreasing the availability of human garbage.
We can learn from citizens in Colorado who have formed volunteer organizations to monitor trash in areas where people live in close proximity to forests with black bear populations. They want to stop black bears being killed when all they are doing is exploiting a food source. This involves practical solutions like providing bear-resistant trash cans and other simple changes in human behavior like occasionally cleaning trash cans with ammonia to reduce odors that attract bears. These changes can keep black bears alive. For more information on Ohio black bears, go to http://wildlife.ohiodnr.gov/species-and-habitats/species-guide-index.
Contributed by Rebecca Rose, Conservation Liaison at Ohio Wildlife Center