Paper Birch Trees & Tracking Black Bears

Video Transcript

"We are Nick and Valerie Wisniewski on behalf of expertvillage.com. We are here to talk about animal tracks and sign; specifically that of the American Black Bear. If you would like more information about this animal, please see our website at walnuthilltracking.com. Where we have here today is an ideal bear habitat which is a large forested area with a variety of food sources. Before us here is a paper birch which has some bear claw marks. Although bears will climb paper birth to feed on the flowers and the tender leaves in the early spring, this particular tree is not marked by bears feeding. It is an intentional set of bear claws that bears use to mark. This tree is located between 2 major areas that bear use. In one direction is a large upland area with oak trees where the bears feed on acorns in the fall and behind us is a large wetland area where bears feed on tender vegetation in the spring time. This particular tree is at a juncture between those two areas. Female bear’s typically have a core area of 2 to 6 miles in diameter and males somewhere between 8 and 15 miles in diameter in this area. This particular tree is a way for bears to locate where they are when traveling between different feeding areas. "