Watching Trees to Track Black Bears

Series Summary

The American black bear makes up the majority of the population of bears living in North America. Black bears have an incredible sense of smell and are known for their chocolate brown to black coats. These bears are able to stand on their hind legs, but tend to walk on all fours. Each paw has a set of five claws used for tearing things, digging in the ground, and climbing trees. These bears hibernate during the winter, and are only found to be aggressive when threatened Attacks on humans are rare and are thought to be predatory. Black bears live on a diet of fruits, grasses, insects, smaller mammals such as rodents, fish, carrion, and honey. Poaching is a huge threat to the survival of the black bear.

Tracking the American black bear is an important aspect of gaining knowledge about this species. In this video series, you can learn more about tracking techniques and the importance the black bear has in nature. Learn how to track bears from paper birch markings and bites from these experts. See examples of babysitting trees, straddle trees, and whammy trees, all with identifying marks left by black bears. You will learn more about tracking bears by watching videos such as the video on tracking the gallop, scat and overstep walk marks. Get ideas on reading signs and learning from skulls left behind by black bears in these educational and fun videos!

This series is an Equilibrio Films production.

Video Transcript

"We are Nick and Valerie Wisniewski on behalf of expertvillage.com. We are here to talk about animal tracks and signs specifically that of the black bear Ursus Americanus. If you need more information about this animal, please see our website at walnuthilltracking.com. We are here at the base of a large hemlock tree. Mother with cubs likes to use large trees like the hemlocks and white pine. They have deeply furrow bark as what we call babysitting trees. Mothers will bed down around the tree with their cubs and if there is any sign of danger, the strategy of the mother defending the cubs is to send the cubs up the tree. Here on the bark we can see some fresh bear claw marks. These are from cubs that rapidly ascended the tree. You can see the claw marks as the bear climbs the tree. There are three kinds of marking that you will find on trees. One is a feeding type of marker. Another is a comm unitive kind of marking but here this is a climbing behavior that is used to get out of the way of danger. The bear as it climbs puts his 4 feet out to the side, hangs on and thrusts up with its hind feet. As you see the marks go up the tree, they will go up beyond your head height, scrambling all the way up to where the canopy gives the cubs shelter. You can differentiate between other kinds of markings and this climbing to get to safety quite easily as once you know what to look for. "