American Black Bear

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Credits to Chris Norcott.

Black bear with her 3 newborn cubs I photographed last winter from their den. She's grabbing one of her explorers and trying to keep him from leaving. Soon after her three cubs opened their eyes and started to crawl the mothers time sleeping became short and seldom. Trying to keep her three cubs from crawling out of the den and into potential danger was a 24/7 challenge.

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Credits to Chris Norcott.

In last nights post this bear had her cubs tucked well underneath her keeping them out of the wind and rain. Here a few weeks later on a calm morning in the forest the cubs are curled up against their mother in the same position but with a little more freedom to move around. You can tell she's wiped out from caring for her fast growing spring cubs.

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Credits to Chris Norcott.

Spring cub responding to her mothers calls to shake off her nap and climb down her safety tree. Following her mothers vocalizations this cub learns to obey and stay near as they travel the forest. When a cub ignores it's mother she will sometimes scold her cub with a gentle slap or a nudge with her muzzle tipping the cub.

Last night I commented how bear cubs will sometimes get corrected by their mothers when they disobey their mothers commands. Tonights image shows you just how tender a mother can be with her cubs when they respond to her call. Here's an example of a cub climbing down to greet her mother after the mother vocalized that her nap time was over.

I will not compare bears to humans when it comes to child rearing. I've never witnessed (after spending 1000's of hours with them) a bear being cruel to their offspring. Humans have been cruel and violent towards their children as we all know by reading/watching the daily news. Sometimes while I spend time with bears and other wildlife I wonder which is the evolved species.

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Credits to Ranjith Kumar.

Himalayan black bear, Dachigam National park.

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Credits to Bill Lea.

Looks can be soooo deceiving and misinterpreted - especially if it is a look on a black bear's face!!!

I love this bear - his name is Patch Jr. Patch is a big male and he LOVES the water, especially on a hot summer afternoon. He often goes and sits in the water of a shallow creek in an effort to cool-off. If the bugs are bad he goes into a culvert and just hangs-out. He barely fits or should I say he "bearly" fits? He is totally content spending an hour or more in the culvert. Sometimes he unintentionally startles other bears when they come down to the creek to get a drink near the culvert where he often resides. Sometimes they huff and blow a bit when surprised at the presence of such a big bear so close-by. But Patch takes it all in stride and never responds. He just remains cool - in more ways than one.

Although Patch is kind of a hulk of a bear, he has a very mild disposition. He gets along well with other bears and is more than willing to share the creek. So, the very intense and actually somewhat intimidating look on Patch's face in tonight's photo comes as a bit of a surprise to me. In the hands of the wrong person, such a photo could be used to mislead others about the gentle nature of this bear and others. So why such an intense look from Patch? He was watching a dragonfly trying to catch mosquiotes fluttering back and forth right in front of his face.



Yes!! When it comes to bears, a single photo can be very deceiving and misleading, but Patch and I know better..... and now, so do you.

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Credits to Bill Lea.

I love to watch bears wrestle and play. It is not something that happens very often, but when It does - it is definitely special. Younger males tend to play most often (not counting sibling cubs, who engage in play all of the time). Such play usually happens when there is an abundant food source where bears have gathered and the young bears have more than adequate body weight. Underweight, hungry bears would seldom, if ever, play.


Such play normally includes mouthing, gentle nipping, pushing, shoving, standing, rolling, and of course, getting dirty. Obviously, some of those same attributes apply to little boys playing and wrestling too. (Remember, bears are so much like us.) In tonight's photo we see one bear applying a "bear hug" on another bear in a "take down" attempt - but it was to no avail. Watching a couple of bears like this just having fun and enjoying life is music to my ears. I love it!

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Credits to Bill Lea.


I think one of the things that endears many of us to bears is that in so many ways they remind of ourselves.


This can be in their behaviors, emotions, body structure (particularly when they stand up on their hind feet), and more. One of my favorite similarities is how they can sit and get into comfortable positions much in the way we might. I find this happens most often when they find just the right branch, downed tree, or in tonight's case, the perfect rock.


The relatively young male bear in tonight's photo interrupted is scratching and grooming to take a quick look at me to make sure I was behaving and practicing proper bear etiquette (like not looking when he was scratching his private parts). I was acting appropriately and he returned to what he was doing, unaware that he provided me with just the right look I was hoping for. I love these endearing moments!

[brobear]

I think one of the things that endears many of us to bears is that in so many ways they remind of ourselves.

The fact that bears appear so man-like is the major reason why they immediately found a special place among primitive peoples wherever they live. In Europe, the strength, courage, and intelligence of the bear only added to this fact to make the bear man-kind's King of Beasts even during the Pleistocene. Same thing in N. America among the early Indians. Bears were from the beginning - where they live - man's chosen animal. Very often viewed as a relative or ancestor, sometimes as a link between the animal world and man's world, sometimes as a spirit animal, sometimes as a devil, and sometimes seen as a god. Never as simply a mere animal.

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Credits to Old Wolf Photography.



Black bears come in a variety of shades including this very popular hue which is known as a Cinnamon Bear. They're just a different color of the same species in fact a couple years ago I saw a black sow with twin coy and one was black and the other was cinnamon. This bear was photographed in the Lamar Canyon between Slough Creek and the Lamar Valley in Yellowstone National Park.

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Credits to White Wolf Pack.

A unique encounter with world's rarest cream-coloured black bear

It’s not a Kermode bear: “The uniqueness of this cub is it’s not a pure white, but more of a caramel-cream, very light brown in colour.”

That conclusion, says de Jong, is based on no identifiable pigmentation on the cub, and on its pink nose. Spirit bears have black noses.

Whistler bear expert Michael Allen says the recent discovery of a nearly white bear cub in the area's mountains is the first he's seen in 23 years of research.

"I have seen cubs ranging [from] black, reddish-brown, chocolate-brown to blonde (after summer bleaching of coat) but, never have seen in this population, a cub with pelage this light to almost white," he wrote earlier this week in an entry posted to his daily bear viewing report.

Tour guide Kathy Jenkins spotted the rare cub out with a resident black mother bear last week. Arthur De Jong says he saw the cub frolicking with its mother on Whistler-Blackcomb mountain last Thursday, a couple of days after Jenkins first caught a glimpse of it.

The environmental planning manager for Whistler-Blackcomb says such a bear had never before been seen in the ski area and he snapped some photos when he spotted it by "pure chance."



De Jong says bear cubs have about a 50 per chance of survival in the first year of life and he's concerned about the "little guy" eating garbage and becoming habituated to people.

De Jong says that so far, experts are leaning toward it being albino because unlike a kermode, it does not have a black nose or pigmentation.

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Credits to In Light of Nature Photography.

Gentle Eyes.

Black Bear, Alaska (wild bear, not captive, not baited or lured).

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Credits to Julie Argyle.

A Big black boar!

[Polar]

Wow, Gurahl, he does look pretty big!

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Credits to John Morrison.

Black bear swimming across the fast Yellowstone River - with no problem at all.

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Credits to John Morrison.

Running bear - male Black bear in Yellowstone National Park, USA.

[brobear]

Black Bear. 

[brobear]

She's a quiet girl, her best friends name is
silence.
She observes the human nature...its every detail. She see things from another perspective and each time she does...
she fears.
g.c

[King Kodiak]

HIBERNATING FEMALE BLACK BEAR IN COLORADO.

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Glacier bear (Blue bear). Source:

www.atlasobscura.com/places/glacier-bears-in-glacier-bay-national-park

American black bears actually come in all of the colors listed above. The white ones are called Kermode bears or spirit bears. The blue ones are glacier bears, or Ursus americanus emmonsii, and were first identified in 1895. Since black bears of all different colors can reproduce and thus create offspring that are heterogeneous with respect to fur color, it is possible that two black bears with black fur might produce a cub with blue fur.

[brobear]

Black bears go fishing too.