Okanagan Nature Nut Blog
April 17, 2026
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Nature’s Living Archive
Admission by Donation • Open seasonally • Experiences for all ages
Black Bears are big eaters!
Rightly so; these lumbering, yet agile hulks lose up to 40% of their body weight while hibernating up to six months each winter
(Nov.-Apr.). So their waking time is spent foraging for food. Thankfully, these omnivorous opportunists – who eat everything
from insect larvae, dandelions and berries to any small animal that they can easily catch, rotten fish and carrion (dead animals)
– don’t have people on their menu.
Bears have fairly good eyesight and hearing, but it’s their acute sense of smell that helps them find food. They can sniff out
fresh plant bulbs and roots or rodents underground as they walk by, or ripe berry patches and rotting fish kms away if the wind
is right.
Bears are good diggers and are strong enough to push aside massive boulders, rip apart tree snags and can break into cabins or
vehicles to get at food. Bears store their food as fat and will aggressively defend their food sources. Boars (male bears) have
established territories that they’ll savagely defend from other males. Sows (female bears) may be permitted to dine and pass
through, but cubs venturing away from mom may be attacked. But when food is abundant – such as during salmon spawning –
territories are ignored.
Black Bears inhabit all parts of BC’s forested lands. “Black” is a misleading name as their hair colour varies from black to brown, cinnamon (reddish), blond or even white like the Kermodes or Spirit Bears.
Once snow starts blanketing the earth, bears head uphill for hibernation. Boars den alone, often meandering around in ever- deepening snow until they can’t easily move. Then they’ll flop down beside a log or under a tree and their body heat will create a snowcave-like air space.
Sows enter rocky dens, large hollow stumps or under log piles in late fall to hibernate. An adult sow (at least 3-4 yrs old) may give birth to two squirrel-size cubs in January to February every second year while she snoozes. They crawl up mom’s thick fur and settle into suckling until she awakes. Her previous year’s cubs may still be with her hibernating. The little ones are puppy dog-sized when they saunter out from their dens with mom in spring.
Once mom ventures out from hibernation with her newborn cubs, she’s hungry from weight loss and nursing, and ornery. She tries to get rid of the previous youngsters – now 16 17 months old – by ignoring them, chasing or shoving them away, and if that’s not enough of a hint, she’ll forcefully whack them. These poor critters then meander around trying to find food to fatten up. Heaven help them if they enter a boar’s territory! It’s the two-year-old bears that usually get into trouble with people. This is when careless campers who’ve left food out, or ruralites with garbage out, fall victim to the youngsters’ search for an easy meal. Do these youngsters a favour by keeping enticing edibles secured away, banging on pots and pans and yelling to scare them away from our territories. We create the “problem bears” that get shot by the conservation officers.
Any time we venture into the wilderness, be it a park, mountain resort or forest, we enter bear territory. Avoid areas frequented by bears. Learn to identify their tracks, which can look much like chubby human tracks as they lumber flat-footed (who would be walking in bare feet in the bush?) and scats which often resembles the food they’ve been eating all mushed up in black piles. Walk in groups. Seeing a bear in the wild is a memorable experience. Let’s keep it that way by learning about our BC wildlife and wilderness safety precautions to keep both them and us safe from harm.
Watch for The Bear Facts in November’s issue
