Whammy Trees & Tracking Black Bears

Video Transcript

" We are Nick and Valerie Wisniewski on behalf of expertvillage.com. We are talking about black bear tracks and sign and for more information on these animals and where to learn more about their behavior, please see our website walnuthilltracking.com. Here in front of us we have an example of bear marking behavior and this has been given the name of a Whammy tree. This often happens on hemlocks and other small diameter trees and in this particular case, it is a cherry. This type of behavior the bear sometimes climbs and sometimes does it from a standing position on the ground, grabs a tree trunk, bites into it and tears the top off of it. You can see here bear bites, clawing and this tree was alive when it was done recently part of it. The part that Valerie has in her left hand was done probably a year ago but this part in her right hand with the reddish bark was done very recently by a black bear. We are not exactly sure why they do this but it is often in association with what we call bear ritual trails where the bears are leaving a pattern of foot prints on the ground that is distinctly used for some kind of communication between bears. "