The Bear Truth

When I saw our motion-sensing lights flip on outside one night, I wasn’t surprised. All manner of creatures tend to set them off, including bats, raccoons, skunks, and our own barn cats. But something that night made me roll out of my cozy bed and peer through the window. That something, it turned out, was a bear casually strolling down our driveway straight toward our orchard and hen house. Then and there, I knew I had to arm myself with information so I could properly protect our homestead. My research, which included information from some of North America’s preeminent experts on black bears, led to fascinating findings that have made me more comfortable living with bears near our home.

Black Bear Basics

Black bears () are the only bears the majority of people in the United States encounter. According to Dr. Stephen Herrero, who taught animal behavior and ecology at the University of Calgary, and who’s widely considered an authority on the topic, there are roughly 750,000 to 800,000 black bears