Black Bear (Ursus americanus)

County List:

Rule:

Forested or Mixed Forested/Nonforested Landscapes

Habitat Requirements may be distributed across the NEIGHBORHOOD

      (Any Forested Upland Except Conifer Plantations (Pole or Sm Saw or Lg Saw or Uneven))
   containing:
      (Dead Down Woody Debris and Mast and Living Cavity Trees)
   neighboring:
      (Any Forested Lowland (Pole or Sm Saw or Lg Saw or Uneven))
   containing:
      (Dead Down Woody Debris and Mast and Living Cavity Trees)
   neighboring:
      (Any Forested Upland (Regen))
      or (Any Forested Lowland (Regen))
      or Grass
      or Upland Brush
      or Savanna
      or Any Cropland
   containing:
      Mast

Habitat List:

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Literature:

Before European settlement, the black bear lived in most forested areas of the continent, but its current range is much reduced. A black bear prefers dense coniferous or deciduous woods having a thick understory and lacking continual disturbance from humans. Both upland forests and swampy woods are acceptable.

About one-quarter of the diet is animal food-mostly carrion and invertebrates. The powerful bear rips open rotting logs or overturns rocks searching for ants and grubs and raids the nests of bees and wasps looking for developing young and stored honey. It occasionally takes a fish, rabbit, or mouse, and, even more rarely, a deer fawn or moose calf. Fruit eaten includes raspberries, cranberries, strawberries, apples, grapes, and cherries. In late summer and autumn beechnuts and acorns are dietary staples.

Habitat: Primarily in fairly remote forests and swamps. Prefers mixed deciduous-coniferous woodlands with a thick understory. Requires abundant sources of hard or soft mast within its habitat.

Special Habitat Requirements: Den sites located under fallen trees, in hollow logs, rock ledges, slash piles or other protected areas.

Habitat Preferences: Two basic black bear environments occur in Michigan: the northern hardwood and conifer forests of the Canadian biotic province and the southeastern hardwood forests of the Carolinian biotic province. These broadly overlap in the northcentral part of the Lower Peninsula, with clearing, lumbering, livestock raising, farming, and other human occupations generating a variety of changes in plant diversity and successional stages.

Upland forests, marshes, swamps, and thickets in several plant successional stages provide forage and cover for this mammal. The best black bear habitat in Michigan combines a series of forested ridges with an interdigitation of marshes and swamps, which give the animal sufficient ranging room and food, and nearby thickets for seclusion.

Density and Movement: Black bears require large expanses in which to roam-probably as extensive as 50,000 acres, and as far as 15 miles from a home base. Males generally travel over larger areas (perhaps twice as great) than females. Movements of both sexes are regulated by age, dominance, territorial restrictions, breeding activities, and sources of food.

Behavior: Erickson recorded 229 winter dens in the Upper Peninsula: 46% were in cavities (usually excavated) under stumps and logs, 21% in holes excavated in knolls or hillsides, and 11% under brush or slash. Others were in hollow standing trees, hollow felled logs, rock crevices, unsheltered depressions, a beaver lodge, and even under a deserted dwelling. Shelters used in summer are less elaborate, generally consisting of "forms" under brush or leafy boughs.

Food Habits: On an annual basis, Banfield (1974) lists the overall diet as consisting of vegetable matter (76.7%), carrion (15.2%), insects (7.4%), and small mammals (0.7%).

Key Components of Habitat: Mosaic of forested, nonforested cover types; mixed forest with variety of tree and shrub species; refuge provided by relatively inaccessible terrain.

Management Actions to Enhance or Maintain Habitat Quality: Provide a variety of successional stages; maintain or encourage cover-type mosaic through cutting and burning; provide units of suitable habitat and area for refuge and travel corridors; maintain units of forest cover in association with cliffs, rock outcrops and riparian areas. Enhance production and diversity of hard- and soft-mast-producing vegetation.

Habitat: Black bears are inhabitants of the forest. They evolved as forest dwellers and have remained dependent on the forests for their survival. Only the forest can provide their seasonal and yearly requirements of space, food, water, cover, and concealment. Generally, a mixed forest with a variety of tree and shrub species of varying ages provides the best habitat. Mountainous regions represent good habitat because of the diversity provided by the varied altitudinal gradients, but the highest growth rates are in eastern deciduous forests where there is a wide variety of food species, including fall crops of nuts and acorns.