Their habitat usually consists of a large forest containing many different kinds of nuts and fruits. The females like to have large trees (over 20 inches in diameter) with furrowed bark (like white pines or hemlocks) for bedding sites. The large trees are also safe for the cubs to learn how to climb. Their diet consist of a mix of fruit, nuts, acorns, insects and succulent greens which they can find in the forest that they live in. They also eat meat such as salmon and other fish. Although it is rare they have also been said to eat deer fawn and moose calves.

The black bear usually wakes up about 30 minutes before sunrise and goes to bed an hour or two after sunset, and in between they take one to two naps during the day. Some black bears have changed their sleeping habits to nocturnal so that they can avoid people. The bears usually hibernate in the winter months because food is scarce, but there have been black bears in the south that don’t hibernate at all because food is available year round. The bears that hibernate for long times slow down their metabolism more than other bears that hibernate for a shorter time do. Their lifespan is usually three to five years because they either starve to death from humans eating or destroying their food, get hit by cars, or shot at and eventually killed by humans.

If humans did not destroy their habitat or kill them, the bears would live from 21-33 years old, like they do in captivity. It is mostly the human’s fault for the short lifespan of the black bear. We are cutting down their habitats which then lessens their food supply and causes them to leave where they have lived there entire lives and go across road and through property where the get hit by cars or shot. Another way that we are endangering them is that we pollute their habitat and food supply for example: we pollute rivers and lakes where they eat fish from. Also another reason that black bears are endangered is because of the introduction of other species that eat the black bears food.

Overexploitation is another cause of endangerment of not only the black bear but also many other species like whales and the bald eagle. Also limited distribution is another factor in the endangerment of many species including the American black bear, limited distribution is where the necessities of life for an organism is scattered in limited areas.

We need to help the endangered species recover from endangerment. To do so we need to understand how they are and learn about them and how they live. We should set aside a certain area of their habitat for them to live in and for us to not disturb. Man is the only predator of the black bear so if we eliminated that factor just for a little while then the black bears could make a come back. I don’t mean get ride of humans, what I mean is that we should not hunt them anymore and stop cutting down forest. By not cutting down forest we would not only help the black bears but we would dramatically increase the number of countless species that inhabit forest. Their are multiple fundraisers to help endangered species and restore their numbers as close as we can to what they were years ago.

• North American Bear Center
• Fish and Wildlife Service