The black bear is the most common and most widespread bear in North America. It lives across much of the continent, from Alaska and Canada through the United States to Mexico, and it mostly lives in forests and other places with trees. Black bears are usually black, particularly in eastern North America, but some are brown or cinnamon colored instead. Some black bears in southeast Alaska have bluish-gray fur and are called glacier bears.

The black bear is the smallest of the bears that live in North America. An adult is about three feet tall at the shoulder, and standing up on its hind legs it is about five feet tall. Adult male black bears are bigger than adult females; a large male can weigh over 600 pounds, while a female seldom weighs more than 200 pounds. Black bears can live up to 30 years in the wild.

Black bears climb trees well, and they can swim. A black bear's claws always stay out, and unlike a cat's claws, they cannot be pulled in. The International Association for Bear Research and Management and Washington's wildlife agency say a black bear can sprint up to about 35 miles per hour (55 kilometers per hour). A national park page and a wildlife center page say black bears can run at up to about 30 miles per hour.

Black bears eat both plants and animals. What a bear eats changes with the seasons: grasses and other green plants in spring, berries in summer, and nuts in fall. Black bears also eat insects such as ants. Black bears are not active predators, and they eat other animals mainly when the chance comes. They also eat animals that are already dead. Where salmon are available, they eat salmon in late summer and fall. Black bears may travel long distances to find food in the fall, and spring, when they come out of their dens, is a hard time to find food.

In fall, black bears eat a lot of fruits and nuts to build up fat for the winter. Black bears spend the winter in dens. A den can be a hollow log, a hollow tree, or a space under tree roots or rocks. A black bear may hibernate for five to seven months of the year, and in the far north it may stay dormant in its den for about seven months. In its den it does not eat or drink for months.

After mating in summer, the black bear's fertilized egg does not start to grow until fall. Black bear cubs are born in winter, in the mother bear's den. Newborn cubs are blind and have almost no hair. They stay in the den with their mother all winter, and she feeds them. Adult black bears usually live alone, but a mother stays with her cubs. Cubs stay with their mother for about a year and a half, and they go into the den with her again the next winter.

Words to know

• dormant: winter rest
• predators: animal hunters
• hibernate: sleep the winter
• fertilized: ready to grow