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The Truth About Bears: Revealing the Facts Behind Eight Common Myths

by Kristina Timmerman and Jennifer Amie

Kristina Timmerman, a researcher in the University of Minnesota's Department of Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology, has spent five years studying black bears in Minnesota's Voyageurs National Park. She has crawled headfirst into dozens of bear dens, tracked roaming bears with radio telemetry, and surveyed Minnesota campers about their attitudes toward bears. Here, she unravels eight common myths and misconceptions about these remarkable animals.

Different Color, Different Species
In Minnesota, you will usually see bears with black fur, but you might also see brown-colored bears or even cinnamon-colored bears. All of them belong to the same species: the American black bear. In some parts of Canada and Alaska, black bears even have cream-colored or blue-tinted fur! Grizzly bears and Pacific coast brown bears belong to a separate species: the brown bear. This species is not found in Minnesota.

Mama Bear, Papa Bear, and Baby Bear
Despite what children's tales say, bears do not live together in family groups. They are solitary creatures that usually live and travel alone. The only long-term relationship is between a mother and her cubs, who stay together for about 16-17 months before the cubs strike out on their own.

If a Bear is Chasing You, Run Downhill
Perhaps this dubious piece of advice derives from a belief that bears, which have shorter front legs, will stumble if they try to run downhill. In fact, bears are fast runners over any terrain. Lean bears can run up to 30 miles per hour for short distances. It's best to never assume you can outrun a bear.

In contrast, Minnesota bears retreat into shallow dens from late September to early November and stay until spring. Adult and yearling bears typically do not eat, drink, urinate, or defecate during the entire denning season.

Unlke smaller hibernators, bears are light sleepers and can awaken relatively quickly. During the denning season, a bear's body temperature drops only 7-12º F below its normal body temperature of 99-102º F. Its metabolism slows by about 50 percent and respiration drops from 6 to 10 breaths per minute to just over 1 breath per minute.

Baby bears are born in the den in January or February. The cubs, which weigh less than one pound at birth, crawl onto their mother and nurse. The mother bear awakens to care for her young, but still spends much of her time snoozing. In Minnesota, bears emerge from the den in March or April. Between early December and mid-March, most bears lose 10-15 percent of their body weight and mothers with cubs lose about 25 percent.

Bears do not hibernate just because it's cold in winter. For omnivores that eat mainly insects and vegetation, sleeping away the winter is an adaptation to a seasonal scarcity of food. Hibernating helps bears conserve energy until their food supply becomes plentiful again in spring.

Bears Live in Caves
Occasionally, Minnesota bears will make their winter home in a rock den. More often, they will excavate a shallow cavity in a sandy hillside or beneath a natural structure such as a fallen tree or a stump. Some bears build nests of grass or leaves right in the open, on top of the ground, without digging a den at all!

Bears Live on Berries
Many people believe that bears feed mainly on berries. In fact, bears are omnivorous. They are intelligent and exhibit such flexible behavior that they are adept at finding many sources of food. In spring and early summer they eat emerging aspen leaves and catkins, tubers, grasses, forbs, ants, caterpillars, and young deer. In mid-summer, they eat sarsaparilla berries, raspberries, blueberries, cherries, currants, arrowwood berries, and occasionally, insects. In late summer and early fall, they feed on acorns, hazelnuts, mountain ash, dogwood, and plums.

Be a Tree
If a bear ambles into your campsite in Minnesota, there's probably no need to freeze-or flee. But that doesn't mean you ought to let bears hang around your picnic table. Bears that are rewarded for foraging at campsites will keep coming back for food. If they become dedicated scroungers, they may be classified as nuisance bears and, ultimately, may have to be destroyed. When a black bear comes into your campsite, try to make that experience a negative one for the bear. Shout, bang pots and pans, or throw small rocks in the bear's direction. You will likely succeed in driving the bear away. If the bear doesn't retreat, then let it explore.

Unprovoked attacks by black bears are extremely rare. Timmerman cautions, however, that they are not unheard of. "Black bears typically do not aggressively defend a space," she says. In nearly all documented cases of serious attacks on humans by a black bear, the bear appeared to be exhibiting some predatory behavior. "The best thing to do if you encounter a bear at close range in the woods is to stay calm, identify yourself as a human by talking in a low voice or waving your hands slowly, then leave the area, giving the bear plenty of space. Usually when a bear becomes aware of you, it will move away first," says Timmerman.

Budweiser Bears?
As part of her research, Timmerman surveyed campers in Voyageurs National Park to find out how much they knew about camping safely in bear country. Although most campers followed some basic strategies to protect their food, many made small mistakes that made their campsites attractive to hungry bears.

Many campers believed that cans of beer and soda were safe from bears, only to find out that a bear can easily puncture a can and drain its contents. Bears will eat (or drink) virtually anything they can get their paws on. They're attracted by scents and will sample anything that has an odor, including toothpaste, lotion, and even scented toilet paper.

One infamous bear, who lives in Voyageurs National Park and is known as "Andy," scavenges at campsites when there is a gap in the seasonal progression of natural food sources. Andy has learned to associate coolers with food. Once, a pair of campers returned from a hike to find Andy sitting in their boat, which was parked on the beach. He rummaged through their cooler and ate a dozen bratwurst and drank a 12-pack of beer.