The Black Bear
Ursus Americanus Pallas
                    Ursus stands about 90 cm at the shoulder and weighs in at anywhere from 57 kg to more than 270 kg.
Ursula (no that is not the accepted scientific name for a female black bear, but it should) is generaly smaller than her male counterpart
He or she varies from pure black to cinnamon or blond. Most are black with a brownish muzzle. They often have a white patch below the throat or accross the chest.

Me Bruiser, you food?

 Ursus is a bit of pig. Go into the forest and ask yourself. Self!. Does this look edible? If it is, Ursus will eat it. We are talking berries, fruit, nuts twigs, leaves, tubers, roots, insects and their larvae, eggs, honey, small mammals, birds, carrion, and human garbage.
Ursus will live anywhere from 25 to 30 years. He is the smallest of the North American bears and he can climb trees like a banshee
Local Color!
Whistler is a ski resort about 120KM north of Vancouver British Columbia. The human population here lives in a valley to the west of Whistler and Blackcomb mountains. Being a bit of party town people tend to forget that the bears were here first.
You can find black bears foraging on the valley floor in early spring. They'll have just come out of hibernation and they'll look like second hand, moth eaten, fur coats on a walking coatrack.
As summer progresses they will start moving up the mountains following fresh grass and clover which springs up as the snow melts.
This is when you can see whole families having dindins while you are riding the chairlift.
In late summer and fall the really serious eating starts. The berries will be ripe and they will start moving back down the hill.
Yes I have met a bruin (actually he was black) just down the street last fall and he did not look like a second hand furcoat any more. He was big, sleek and NOT looking for trouble! He (all 500 pounds of muscle and teeth and claws) actually moved behind some bushes when he saw us coming. We dealt with him as if he where a prize fighter with bad breath that is, we kept talking and going in the same general direction we had been before. No sudden movements no screaming or yelling just steady on giving him lots of time to trundle off..

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This page last updated March 1997
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