Virtual Ranger Program: Bear Country

Hi, I’m Ranger Lavender here in Shenandoah National Park. Do you plan on visiting the park whether you’re going to spend just the day or the night? Hike the area trails or drive Skyline Drive? When you are in Shenandoah National Park, you are in bear country, and if you enjoy bear country properly we can help to ensure that bears and people can continue to share this special place, whether lounging in a tree or darting across the road, bears can sometimes be hard to recognize, especially in low light. So, what does a black bear look like? They can range in a variety of colors, but they are most often black, but they can be blonde or cinnamon red color, bluish-gray, and but most often they’re black with a little bit of white or a little bit of brown, especially here in the eastern United States. Black bears are most often black, and they’re sometimes smaller than what people expect, ranging in a size from 150 pounds to 500 or 600 pounds. Black bears, on average, are two-to-three hundred pounds.

They’re going to be about three feet off 01:23 - the ground when they’re on all four paws, and about four to six feet long from head to rump. If they were to stand up on their back paws, they would be closer to six or seven feet tall all the way to their heads, so they can be big but also appear about the size of a very large dog, and at low-light conditions the brown and black can sometimes blend in with the deep forest, so keep your eyes out for a variety of different colors and shapes that might be coming from the woods. One of the most memorable features of black bears are going to be their claws and feet. Black bears have claws that are about one-to- two inches in length–that’s pretty long, but a lot shorter than other bears in North America. They need nice short claws, so that they can climb trees easier, and a black bear paw–this is going to be a hind foot, so one of their back feet–is going to be six -to-seven feet long, or six- to-seven inches long for the paw print, and just to give you some idea of its size quite a bit bigger than a human hand print, but it’s still very, very large even when compared to my foot, so when you see prints out on trails they’re pretty obvious to recognize that this would come from a black bear.

Their toes are 02:46 - pretty flexible and those long claws are going to be very helpful for the bear to roll logs, dig holes, scratch trees, and bend uh tree limbs for nibbling on, and lounging up in trees. Their feet are one of their best adaptations for survival in their environment. Bears live in a variety of different environments. Here in the east, they’re going to be found in forests and swamplands. Out west, in the wooded mountains and anywhere along forested riparian areas near rivers and creeks. To survive in this variety of habitats, bears also eat a variety of different foods. Xan you think of one food that a black bear might eat? Probably whatever you said is correct, because bears eat almost anything. This makes them really well adapted to their environments. So, about 85 percent of a black bear’s diet is non-meat sources, but they are considered omnivorous, which means they eat both meat and non-meat food sources. They will eat small game even up to the size of a deer, but they typically stick with carrion or grubs, termites, small insects, and then their non-meat vegetation sources can be anything like acorns, nuts, blueberries, apples.

They like honey, they even eat some things 04:13 - you might not think a bear enjoys, like grazing on grasses and they’ll even eat poison ivy. So, a lot of different things bears enjoy eating. There are times where bears will eat tons and tons of food, and other times where black bears will go through a period without eating anything at all. Can you think of a time when a black bear does not eat? If you said winter or hibernation, you would be correct. Sometimes, we think of bears as going into torpor, that’s another version of decreased activity and body function, and it’s very similar to hibernation.

In recent years, 04:59 - bears have been considered by some researchers to be true hibernators or even super hibernators, but they are still somewhat similar to those animals that go into torpor. The biggest difference is animals that go into torpor can easily awaken. They maintain a greater consciousness than the deep sleeping of most hibernators, but bears do hibernate in the winter or den up into a semi-sleeping state dropping a lot of their body functions either to being slower or shutting things down completely. So, their body temperature will drop 10-to-15 degrees; their breathing will slow way down, taking a breath as slow as maybe just once every 10 to 20 seconds; their their kidneys and digestive organs will shut down, and they’ll stop using the bathroom meaning they no longer defecate or urinate, which allows them to really stay warm and slow in that semi-sleeping state. To prepare for this period of hibernation, the bear really needs to make sure that it it really packs on the pounds to survive this period of no eating.

This period in the fall is called hyperphagia, and it’s really just 06:17 - overeating or eating more than usual. During this period, a black bear will eat up to 20,000 calories a day. So what does that mean when you compare it to human food to eat 20,000 calories a day? We would have to eat on average about 30 hamburgers or 100 tacos every single day. Now, if we were to put that in bear food instead of human food, that would be equivalent to a five gallon bucket of blueberries or apples, and I love blueberries and apples, but that’s that’s a lot of blueberries and apples. And, to be able to eat that much in one day, the bear needs to do mostly just eating constantly.

Here in Shenandoah National Park, we have excellent bear country 07:09 - full of natural wild food sources for bears, not just the historic apple orchards but the variety of native grasses and places like Big Meadows and also the food sources from the trees. The acorns and pine nuts that are very plentiful here in this eastern hardwood forest really make Shenandoah National Park excellent bear country. There are some very special things that a very special thing that happens to bears during hibernation that really requires the bear to maintain brain function to be able to easily awaken and to think something very special happens to the mama bears during hibernation. Can you think of what that might be? They give birth! So the mama bears, the sows, will give birth during hibernation typically in January, and she will din up with her cubs, nursing them, caring for and protecting those bears until they can emerge from the den together in March or April depending on the region and climate. Again, they’re going to emerge from their dens when the food availability is good for them in the spring, so during warm weather periods in the winter, some black bears will awaken and eat and then return to their dens when cold weather returns, but it’s not really because it is cold or their bear gets too cold.

They have a thick coat of fur, 08:35 - but it is because the food availability is not there, so when a black bear cub is born it is very much dependent upon its mother for its survival. They are much smaller than their parental counterparts. A baby black bear cub is going to be born about the size of a stick of butter. That’s pretty small! They’re also going to be hairless and blind, but when they emerge from their den with their mama, they’re going to see pretty well and they’re going to have a thick coat of fur, and they’re going to learn how to explore their environment with their mom. Baby bear cubs are often considered very cute and playful, and this may help those bears learn about their environment and better survive, so bears are often seen playing with tree limbs and digging holes and tumbling around, and this might help those young bears learn what they can and can’t climb, and what they can and can’t eat.

The cubs will stay with the mother 09:36 - through the entire summer. They’ll experience that fall hyperphagia, really eating together, and may even join her with into the second period of hibernation, denning up with her in the winter. Before around their second year, they will disperse and find their own territory and food sources. When you are exploring Shenandoah National Park, it’s important that you are safe and smart. While here, there’s some things you can do to help protect the black bear population, and also keep yourself safe.

I like to think of it as just a few things that we can do to have an 10:18 - awesome adventure here in the park. First of all, it’s really important that you know your bears, and then recreate responsibly. To know your bears I mean when you come to Shenandoah you should know that we only have black bears, but if you go to another place, another park, like say Yellowstone, you could come in contact with black bears and grizzly bears. Knowing what wildlife is in that place you’re visiting and learning more about it will help you know how to behave. Should you come across that wildlife, there are some key differences between black bears and grizzlies.

10:55 - Of course, first of all, grizzlies are typically larger, but also black bears are more often black and they have taller ears on their heads, but a small grizzly can also appear to have larger ears. That paw print that I showed you would be much larger if it was a grizzly, so if you were to see paw prints left behind, it’s good to check out and see what size that paw print is. Black bears are going to have front paw prints on soil or sand or in the mud that are going to be four and a half to five inches long, much smaller than a grizzly. Also, grizzlies have a very hunched shoulder and a dished face profile. I like to think of black bears of having a straight, long snout perfect for skiing.

Of course, I wouldn’t want to ski 11:48 - down a black bear’s face, but it’s kind of fun to imagine what it would be like. When you see the profile of a black bear, maybe you’ve heard some stories about people out running or out climbing. A black bear, have you ever heard the song “The Other Day I Saw a Bear, A Great Big Bear Oh Way Up There?” I love that song! I have a lot of fun memories of singing that at camp, but as fun as that song is, it’s not really a good way to learn how to behave in bear country because it’s all about running away from a bear or climbing in a tree to get away from a bear. Bears can outrun and out climb people. It’s good to know this, so that you know what to do should you see a bear. Don’t run and don’t climb a tree, but there are some easy things that you can do.

12:38 - Maybe you’ve heard stories that you should play dead, so laying on the ground covering the back your neck and playing dead, that’s typically something we suggest for you to do when in grizzly bear country. When you’re in close contact with a grizzly, this is where it really comes into play to know know your bears here in Shenandoah, we only have black bears, so we don’t want you to play dead. We want to do other things. In black bear habitat, that have been shown to be more successful you want to stand your ground be more confident. Be what I call a family blob. So, if you have kids with you, pick them up. If you have several people with you all just stand together, and if you’re by yourself that’s okay, just look even bigger waving your arms and making a little bit of noise, something like, “hey bear, hey,” so not squealing and screeching, but still confident and calm. At the same time, you want that bear to know where you are.

Some people suggest that you bring bear bells 13:43 - to make noise while hiking in bear country, but the sound is actually not that loud and some researchers have determined that bears aren’t even in tune to such a non-natural sound, meaning that a human is nearby, so it’s much easier to just use your own voice. Make a little bit of noise when you’re in grizzly habitat. You always want to be making noise, so maybe you’ve seen nature videos if you’ve hiked with people where they’re constantly clapping “whoa bear, whoa,” as they’re going through the brush. Here in black bear habitat, you just don’t want to be quiet when you see a bear, so if you were to come in contact with a bear just make a little bit of noise again, waving your arms, “whoa bear, hey,” making a little bit of noise. Calm, but confident. There are some things you can do before you even see the bear, and one of those is simply keep your wits about you.

Keep your eyes open and your ears open, so sometimes 14:41 - I see hikers and trail runners here in the park with earbuds in listening to music and podcasts, and that’s great, but I very much strongly recommend you keep at least one ear open, so not having earbuds in that ear, and that’s just simply so you can hear the sounds around you. Not just the amazing birds singing, but also perhaps a bear crashing through the woods. Sometimes folks recommend bringing bear spray. A lot of different tools are recommended for grizzly country to always have with you, but you might consider bringing bear spray into black bear country, but if you do make sure you know how to use it. You don’t want to have a tool handy that you’ve never used before, you’re not aware how to use, so be sure you learn how to use that bear spray.

15:29 - I typically don’t carry bear spray into black bear country, I rely instead on keeping my ears and eyes open and when I see a bear making myself known, making a little bit of noise. So what if you come very, very close to a bear and you’re making some noise? “Whoa bear, whoa,” but the bear is not backing away? That is your cue that you back away. You want to know where you are. Look all around you and choose a safe route to back away slowly all the time making some noise and looking around you. Sometimes if there’s a mama bear with cubs she’s going to send her cubs up a tree, even very young bear cubs in the spring are excellent climbers and she would rather protect all of her cubs up in a tree, guard the tree, then do any preemptive attacking. That’s much more common for them to just guard the tree, which gives you a very easy opportunity to just back away slowly, making some noise, “Whoa, bear. Hey I’m going back this way.

” That’s the best way 16:36 - to behave if you come across a bear in the park. If something was to happen and the bear turned, followed you, and acted aggressively, this is where you are going to also act aggressively. So if the bear was to charge, you’re going to raise that voice and get more obnoxious, “Whoa, whoa!” And, just really make a lot of noise, keeping your family or friend blob close. This is usually all that’s needed and long before that happens, you can simply keep your distance. A bear really needs several hundred feet between you and them to feel confident and comfortable in their space, so give that bear several school bus lengths between you and them, and if you are much closer then go ahead and back away slowly making noise.

This is not only 17:27 - a suggestion, this is the law. You need to keep your distance from bears - at least 150 feet, but I recommend two or three hundred feet. Again several school bus lengths between you and that bear. So, as soon as you can do that, and when you get a chance come and let us know that you saw bears in the park and what their behavior was. We like to keep track of what bears are doing in picnic areas, on trails, in the backcountry, or darting across the road.

So, 17:56 - whenever you get a chance share your bear story with us. How do you know that you might see a bear? Is there any way that you could prepare before you even see the bear? Yes! You can look for clues or signs. Now, there’s bear sign and there’s bear’s sign, and what I mean by that is these bear prints on the trail, that would be bear sign, but there’s also bear signs on trail posts and picnic tables, sandwich boards all over the park. We have bear signs. Now, when you see these signs that indicate a bear is in the area, that’s when you really want to be extra alert. I love hiking with friends and family, but if I see any clues or signs that bears are in my environment, I’m going to start just really paying attention to the environment around me.

18:55 - One of the best clues that a bear has been in the area very recently is something that has not just a visual cue, but perhaps a little smell. Can you think of what that might be? Scat, also called poop, we rangers we like to call it bear scat. This is a replica of bear scat, so this is life size though, I’ve seen it much bigger too. I love seeing bear scat in the woods. I know that might sound a little weird. Why would I want to see bear poop right? Or any kind of poop? What’s really cool about bear scat is it tells you not only that a bear was in that area, but it’ll also give you clues as to what it was eating. I wouldn’t recommend touching bear scat with your bare hands, but I do like to put on some gloves and a stick and poke at it a little bit - look at that bear scat, see what’s inside.

Sometimes I’ll see hair from deer, or maybe bones from fish, or 19:55 - acorn shells, and sometimes when you get a really sloppy poo that means it’s fruit season, so you’ll have lots of berries, huckleberries, blueberries, and things like that in their scat or poop. Where I used to live in the desert, we would get really splattered pink and purple bear scat and that’s because they were eating the prickly pear fruits or tunas. Bears love fruits, just like me, and sometimes that affects their poop. So a little bit less uncomfortable than that maybe would be talking about your food. So what do you do with your food when you’re in bear habitat? Do you think you have to do anything special? It’s really important that you secure your food.

So, 20:43 - we’ve talked about how to see if there’s bears in your area, what to do if you see a bear, but there are other things you can do to make sure you don’t get a bear up close, and that is secure your food. What do I mean when I say “secure your food?” Here in Shenandoah National Park, even your car is considered bear proof with the windows rolled up, and that’s true in most places, but not all. So, if you visit other places of bear country, make sure you know if your car is considered bear proof. There are some other ways to secure your food as well. If you were to go camping it’s really important that you make sure your food is secured anytime you are not right next to it.

So if you’re camping in a campground, use those steel or metal bear lockers. If a bear locker is not available, you can use your car with the windows rolled up. What about if you’re backpacking? There’s no cars in sight. How do you secure your food? In this park, you can either use a bear canister or hang your food up in a tree. Hanging your food up in a tree sounds the easier method, sounds like it’s the easier method. It can sometimes be much more difficult. First, you need a good bag to put your food in. It can be scent proof that bag or not because it’s all about getting the food away from a bear. Bears can smell food from several miles away, so it’s more about making it inaccessible to the bear. Here in Shenandoah, the regulation is the food needs to be 10 feet off the ground and at least four feet from the tree trunk in major branches. Remember: Black bears can climb trees, so just tossing it over a nearby limb isn’t going to be enough; that’s just a ladder to the food.

When you get to camp, make sure that securing your food 22:32 - is a priority. Long before it’s dark, you want to make sure you have a good spot to hang your food. For that reason, when I go backpacking I really prefer to bring a bear canister. I don’t have to search and hunt for good trees, and sit there, hang in my food for hours. I simply pack the food in a bear proof food canister. It’s even human resistant. I can see through it, and I can put it wherever I want. In fact, you can watch Youtube videos of black bears and grizzlies trying to get into an approved food canister for hours. They can’t do it. You want to keep this canister at least 100 to 150 feet from your camp in a nice secure spot where it’s not going to roll off a hill or over a cliff. Easy to do after you’re done with dinner, so I recommend a bear canister and if you want to know what types of bear canisters are considered fully bear proof, a quick online search will get you the types and brands that are fully bear proof. Besides securing your food while camping, what if you’re just picnicking and you’re just here for the day? We often get people wondering how long they can leave their food. The answer is never.

If you’re going to go on a short hike, 23:53 - look at the view, or the whole family is going to take a restroom break, secure your food first. Don’t leave that food out even for a minute. When we secure our food properly, we not only make sure that bears are not eating it, but all other wildlife are also protected from eating human food. It’s really important that bears have no association with humans and food. That means the bears will search for wild food sources and they won’t approach humans picnic areas and campgrounds as often for that food.

24:30 - If you were to come to a bear program almost a hundred years ago, the bear education you received at a national park might be very different. Here in national parks, we haven’t have always had the best bear education messages, because bears have returned to some national parks and we’ve been learning more about them over the years, and as we learn more we have changed, and we need you to as well. These are hard-earned lessons that we’re very proud that we have changed the way we manage bears in our parks to help ensure their survival, but also human safety. So if you were to go to a bear program in Yellowstone or Sequoia back in the late 1800s and early 1900s, you could go to a bear program with live wild bears eating at what was often called a “lunch counter.” Super scary to think about today. This was an opportunity, pretty exciting, for visitors to watch bears eating human food scraps left behind, and you could get a really up close and personal experience with those bears.

Of course this was somewhat dangerous and eventually this led to bear seeking 25:42 - out human uh sources of food and attacks started occurring, so that it wasn’t very safe for people. These “lunch counters,” these food scrap spots were shut down by the park service, and we then had to work to re-wild what bears we could and others we had to destroy. So some bears couldn’t learn, couldn’t unlearn the bad tricks and continued to seek humans for food. They would tear into campsites and picnic areas and cars. We don’t want that anymore. Here in Shenandoah, we have a pretty good bear-human relationship, but we can always do better, and we can do that by securing our food from bears.

Have bears always been in Shenandoah National Park? 26:28 - No. There was a period where bears were here historically, and then a long period where there were no black bears in what is now Shenandoah National Park. After a long period of habitat destruction and unregulated or unmanaged hunting, the bear population became pretty much zero in what is today Shenandoah National Park, but of course we have bears here now. How did they get here? Did the park service put them here? One really interesting thing about black bears is how far they’ll travel in search of food and mates. A typical black bear territory will be anywhere from 1 to 30 square miles, but they can go up to 100 miles in search of food and mates.

There was 27:15 - a remaining small population of black bears in the nearby Allegheny Mountains to the west of what is now Shenandoah National Park, and in the 1930s and 40s they naturally repopulated Shenandoah National Park. All we had to do here to help protect this bear population. This new population was learn about them and take those lessons to help manage the population. So today we want to make sure we do what’s right, start off on the right paw with this new black bear population, because today we have several hundred black bears that make Shenandoah National Park home. You might even be the next person that sees a bear in Shenandoah.

From spring to fall, a bear is seen 28:01 - nearly every single day by someone in the park, and there are some days, especially in the fall, when the bears are doing that crazy eating that we get many black bear sightings by many different people every single day, and that next person that sees a bear could be you! Who doesn’t want to see a black bear? Maybe from a distance, but still it’s an iconic national park experience, and knowing what to do properly will definitely keep you safe, but also help ensure that bear or bear family and bear cubs feel safe and can survive and thrive here in Shenandoah National Park. One of the simplest things you can do to help protect the black bear population here in the park is simply drive safely, follow the speed limit, try to keep most of your driving to the daylight hours, if there’s dense fog or the sun is setting that’s a good time to get out on the other local highways, and off the parks roads, it’s very windy we don’t have a lot of street lights and wildlife dart from the woods constantly, so protect them by driving safely, drive the speed limit. So if you see bears crossing the road certainly stop or slow your vehicle, but be careful you don’t cluster or linger in that area for a long period of time. This can cause what we call “bear jams” in the park, which is dangerous for people, too. We want you to move along as soon as it is safe, and never get out of your vehicle.

29:29 - You need to keep your distance when you see bears, so snap a cool photo, enjoy the sighting, but then move along so that mama bear or male bear or bear cubs feels comfortable and safe in their environment, and they can keep eating those acorns or pine nuts or apples. Now that you know more about the black bears that make Shenandoah National Park their home, I hope you will venture out into the park both safely and smartly. You may or may not see a bear, but knowing that bears are in this environment, it’s an iconic special national park experience, and what you do while you’re here can make a difference knowing the regulations and following them while you’re here in the park will help to ensure that future generations of people, and black bears can continue to share bear country. That’s it for today! Good luck seeing your bears! .