June 16, 2023

American Black Bears
Ursus americanus

We have had a beautiful spring season this year! I was enjoying the weather and realized I had not written about nature lately. Inspired by all of the recent bear sightings around town, I decided to learn more. This week's Musings from Main focuses on Black Bears. All of the image used (except those of the rare Spirit Bear) are of bear sightings in South Windsor and were taken off of Facebook. The people credited for the images, are the names associated with the posts containing the image. I apologize in advance if they are not properly credited.

Black Bears Basics
The American Black Bear is the smallest and most common of the three bear species (Black, Grizzly, Polar) that call North American their home. They average 5-6 feet long, weigh between 200-600 lbs, and have around a 20 year life span. Adult male bears are called boars and mature females sows. Although the name Black Bear suggests they are all of one color, their fur can actually have more of a blue-gray, brown, or cinnamon color.

They are omnivores, meaning they eat both plants and animals.  According to the website for National Geographic their diet consists mainly of grasses, roots, berries, and insects, but they also eat fish and mammals. Like the fox, coyote and eagle, they can be scavengers and are not opposed to eating carrion. Because of this tendency to "not turn down a free meal", Black Bears can quickly develop a taste for human food and garbage.

Black Bears spend the winter season hibernating in their dens. It is during this time that the females give birth to their cubs which are blind, toothless, about the size of a soda can, and covered with fine hair. According to the Connecticut Department  of Energy and Environmental Protection (CT DEEP) website, after giving birth, the mother usually continues her winter rest while the cubs are awake and nursing. The National Wildlife Federation website says the protective mothers will have her cubs den with her again the following winter. Then in the spring, when the cubs are one and a half years old, they will part ways and the female will breed again.

Connecticut Bears

By the mid-1800s Black Bears were extirpated from Connecticut. They began returning over one hundred years later in the 1980’s due in part to the reclamation of cleared farmland by forest. Since their return, public sightings of bears have been collected by the Wildlife Division, with northwest region of the state hosting the the highest concentration of Black Bears. Report a bear.

There has been a rapid increase in the bear population between the early 2000s and today and it is expected to continue as much of Connecticut’s landscape is forested and suitable for black bears. Inevitably interactions between humans and bears will increase. Become “Bear Aware"! Learn about best practices to both reduce the likelihood of an encounter with a bear, Make your place a "No-Bear-Food-Zone"!,  and know what to do in the event of an encounter.

Extremely Rare Spirit Bears
White Black Bears

According to the North American Bear Center website about 100 rare Black Bears exist with white or creamy fur, brown eyes, dark nose pads, and nearly white claws known as Spirit Bears or Ghost Bears. The vast majority of them live on three small islands off the coast of British Columbia (BC), Canada. Author Jeremy Portal writes in his article, Spirit Bear: May Your Land Always Be Yours, "In 2006 the Province of BC in partnership with the Valhalla Wilderness Society announced 10 Spirit Bear conservancies totaling 200,000+ hectares of temperate rainforest. In the process the Spirit Bear has become an international icon for the entire campaign in conserving the Great Bear Rainforest."

Away from these islands in British Columbia, this striking looking subspecies of Black Bear called Kermode Bears (Ursus americanus kermodeii) are one in a million. There have only been four white Black Bears being reported outside British Columbia in recent decades, one subadult male near Orr, Minnesota in 1997, two white cubs in Manitoba, Canada in 2000, and another cub in Manitoba, in 2004.

Indigenous Peoples of the area have long known about Spirit Bears and they are included in their oral traditions. In his article for the Canadian magazine Nation titled "How Spirit Bear became the symbol of First Nations child welfare", author Patrick Quinn writes, "According to legends of the Kitasoo and other First Nations living near the Great Bear Rainforest of the Pacific Northwest, Raven the Creator made one in 10 Black Bears white to remind him of when the world was covered by frozen glaciers. As bears are considered keepers of dreams and memory, the Spirit Bear found in this rainforest is perhaps also an appropriate symbol for childhood purity."

The Spirit Bear living in Minnesota was named "Halo". Volunteers at the Vince Shute Wildlife Sanctuary dubbed him Halo because when the young bear first timidly stepped out into an opening, the afternoon sun backlit the tips of his fur giving him a white halo-like effect. Halo caused such a media stir that the Minnesota legislature gave protection to all white bears in the state. Over the following year, Halo repeatedly visited the Sanctuary.  He was last seen in May of 1998. Halo was so popular and caused such a media stir that in 1999 the state's legislature gave protection to all white bears in the state, but Halo remains the only white bear ever reported in Minnesota.

Become Bear Wise
and be
Bear Aware!

Learn More about Spirit Bears, by exploring these articles.

What is a Spirit Bear?
Spirit Bear: May Your Land Always Be Yours

Halo – Minnesota’s White Bear

Long kept secret, Canada's ghostly spirit bears are even rarer than thought