Black Bear - Breakfast On The Deck!

Good Morning - what's for breakfast?

Good Morning - what's for breakfast?

Young male Black Bear now on his own makes a very rare daylight morning stop on the deck looking for food. Also a rare morning when the two trail cams are still running so we see the bear from three different cameras. Note the Eastern Towhees sounding the alarm calls - Blue Jays are not a big presence here so the Towhees are sort of the Backyard Watchouts.  I always put the bird food away at night and put it back up in morning - perhaps this bear is starting to figure that out. The fact that more bears have been showing up recently may mean that food is scarcer than usual up in the mountain forests. This should be berry-time!



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Good Morning - what's for breakfast?

Black Bear Abnormal Stereotypic Pacing At Nature Center

Video: Black Bears Abnormal Stereotypic Pacing At Nature Center

A large male Black Bear repetitively pacing endlessly on his well- worn path at the Western North Carolina Nature Center in Asheville, NC. Sadly, this is all too common behavior of large carnivores in zoos. This bear is making the exact same moves that polar bears and grizzly bears often make in captivity. There are many articles on this unfortunate side effect of putting large animals in captivity and what might be done - a few are linked below. The WNC Nature Center was clean and the people no doubt well-meaning and caring and the enclosure was actually quite large with boulders and trees etc., but this poor bear exists for a fair amount of time each day judging by the path he has worn pacing within an "imaginary cage" about 30 feet long. This "psychosis" and the very exaggerated head turns made at each end are classic symptoms many large bears display in captivity. The large Black Bear that I film in the wild in the Great Smoky Mountains each summer has a territory of thousands of acres and only visits every 10-14 days - perhaps this lack of territory has a lot to do with this captive bears behavior (see: https://youtu.be/r-byBTm43c8 ). I don't know the history of this bear, perhaps he was a rescue bear that had a hard cage-confined life in captivity starting at a young age. I have always had mixed feelings about zoos - preferring to see animals in the wild in their natural habitat - but zoos reach millions each year and large carnivores are a big draw, but they are the animals least suited to captivity.  There can be no enjoyment in seeing a captive animal exhibiting this behavior.  

More information:

http://www.polarbearsinternational.org/sites/default/files/stereotypic_behaviour_for_pbi_final.pdf

http://www.bornfree.org.uk/campaigns/zoo-check/captive-wildlife-issues/abnormal-behaviours/

http://www.slate.com/blogs/wild_things/2014/06/20/animal_madness_zoochosis_stereotypic_behavior_and_problems_with_zoos.html

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Video: Black Bears Abnormal Stereotypic Pacing At Nature Center

Black Bear Visits Bird Feeder at Night - Bushnell Trophy Cam

Video: Black Bear Visits Bird Feeder at Night - Bushnell Trophy Cam

A big Black Bear standing just over 6 feet tall captured with a Bushnell Trophy Cam pays a visit to the bird feeder at 217 AM in the Great Smoky Mountains of western North Carolina. The suet feeders, hummingbird feeders and finch feeders had been put away for the night. The remaining wood feeder was essentially empty, but the bear found a small amount of seed in the corners. Bear could have easily ripped the feeder down as it's only hanging from a tree by some twine, but chose instead to stand and gently lick out any seeds and move quickly on.  It is important to bring in bird feeders at night especially nectar and suet so that bears, as in this case, are not rewarded with a free meal. This bear has a large territory and stops by about every week to ten days and as long as it doesn't find anything good to eat it makes a quick survey of the area and moves on. If it were to find suet or such treats replaced every night and left out it would likely begin to hang around more often and then bad things could happen. The feeder is six feet off the ground which was nose level on tip toes so this is a pretty good size bear. Couldn't tell for sure, but this is probably Papa Bear - Moma Bear and the three cubs which keep apart from him are at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKanOfxTOAo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l17jHLpqEaU

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Video: Black Bear Visits Bird Feeder at Night - Bushnell Trophy Cam

Bears Amazing Sense of Smell !

Video: Bears Amazing Sense of Smell !

A Demonstration of Bears Amazing Sense of Smell! This beautiful mother Black Bear with three cubs visited the exact same location three different times which provides an excellent example of a bears sense of smell - 7 times better than a bloodhounds and perhaps the best in the world. On the first visit there is birdseed inside a sealed plastic "coffee can" inside the deck box. She readily smells it and deftly flips open the lid with her nose like a pro. After I saw this the deck box was cleaned and kept empty. The next two visits she sniffs the box and can instantly tell there is nothing to eat in there and quickly moves on - even though she could easily flip it open as before to verify - based on scent alone she knows its empty and moves on. Note that the cubs were fascinated by the smell of my sandals as well :-)

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Video: Bears Amazing Sense of Smell !

Curious Bear Cubs

Video: Curious Bear Cubs

Big Mother Bear and her three healthy cubs, born over the winter, pay a visit to the front porch in the Great Smoky Mountains. Mother Bear deftly flips open the deck box with her nose which contains a bird feeder put away for the night and the three cubs find the box endlessly fascinating in addition to a pair of flip flops. One of the cubs does a nasty header trying to get down from the box at the 1:05 mark, but shakes it off! The young are flexible.

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Video: Curious Bear Cubs