Nature Articles - Black Bears                                         

Black Bears Return to the Buckeye State
By Kimberly Whitton, Communications Specialist

There’s bears in them thar’ hills! In the hills of eastern Ohio that is! The great native black bear is making a comeback in the buckeye state after a very long hiatus. Black bears, which once numbered in the thousands, started disappearing from Ohio’s landscape in the 1850s as settlers began clearing habitat for farms and towns and killing bears for fat, meat and fur. As the bear population decreased and human population increased in Ohio, the black bear continued to thrive in the woodlands of West Virginia and Pennsylvania. It wasn’t until the 1980s that the black bear began expanding its territory westward back into Ohio where woodlands and food supply have been replenished. They continue to be on Ohio’s endangered species list.

The American black bear is the most common bear species native to North America. They prefer to live in forested and shrubby areas, they have dense black fur, walk in a shuffling, flat-footed manner and have five toes on each foot . The average adult bear weighs 150 to 300 pounds and can live to the age of 20. Black bears are also known to have a great sense of smell, good hearing and good vision. Black bears are highly mobile and it’s not unusual for one to two year old males, newly shunned by their mothers, to travel up to 100 to 200 miles in search for a place to call home. Their diet typically consists of grubs, nuts, berries and other plants, but they have been known to eat “people food” if it’s accessible. Believe it or not, a black bear eats 20 hours a day, consuming nearly 40,000 calories in preparation for winter! They spend the winter season in hollowed-out dens inside tree cavities, under logs or rocks, in banks and in shallow depressions.

Over the last 25 years, the presence of these beautiful creatures in eastern Ohio has become more frequent. Just last year, a record 128 black bear sightings in 29 Ohio counties were reported to the Ohio Division of Wildlife. Most of the sightings were in the months of June and early July during breeding season. Every year many bear reports are associated with nuisance situations, where humans have left out food or trash that attracts the bears and entices them return. That is why humans are strongly advised not to feed the bears or leave food out where bears are known to thrive. Many bear encounters may frighten humans, but in reality bears are naturally shy creatures and typically become aggressive when they are aggressively confronted and can’t avoid an encounter.

To find out more about the migration of the black bear population and their biology, attend a Hamilton County Park District Naturalist program called “Happy Birthday Smokey” on Saturday, August 2 at 1:00 p.m. inside the Miami Whitewater Forest Visitor Center. The Naturalist will talk about one very famous black bear named “Smokey” and how his message of preventing forest fires has evolved over the past 64 years. The program will then take a detailed look into Smokey’s black bear family.