Slightly smaller than its cousin, the red fox, the gray fox prefers wooded habitat. It is also known as the flying fox or tree fox because unlike most canids the gray fox has semi-retractable claws, which enable it to climb.
Habitat
The gray fox prefers dense hardwood or mixed hardwood/softwood forests. Gray fox habitat is commonly located along the banks of streams and rivers. It also prefers overgrown fields for foraging.
The gray fox requires den sites, which may be a hollow log or tree, rock crevice, piles of wood or a brush pile. It often lines the den with shredded bark or leaves and will return to the same one year after year.
The gray fox is nocturnal and crepuscular, which means it is most active at dusk and dawn. During the day, it remains in the den. The gray fox is extremely territorial of its small (often only one square mile) home range.
This fox is unlike any other canid in its ability to climb trees. It will climb trees to escape ground predators, to pursue tree dwelling animals, or to attack ground prey from above. The gray fox can climb up a tree by grasping the trunk with its forepaws and forcing itself up higher by the strength of the claws on its back feet. To descend, it can scramble down head or feet first by jumping from branch to branch.
Reproduction
The gray fox breeds and raises one litter annually, beginning the first year of its life. The breeding season for the gray fox ranges from February to March. During this time, it is not uncommon for males to fight aggressively in competition for females.
After mating, a male will stay with a female to provide her with food during denning and to assist in caring of the young. After a gestation period of 53 days, young are born in a litter ranging in size from one to seven pups.
The dark brown pups are born blind and are dependent on their parents for survival. They are weaned, or stop suckling, at about six weeks of age. Gradually they learn how to fend for themselves.
At three months, the pups leave the den with their parents and learn to hunt. By four months of age the pups are able to forage on their own. The young remain with the parents until fall, at which time they reach sexual maturity and disperse.
Diet
The gray fox is an omnivore, eating a wide variety of plants and animals. Common prey includes rabbits, rodents, birds, crickets, grasshoppers, squirrels, opossum and fresh carrion (dead animals). The gray fox also supplements its diet with apples, grapes, corn and other plants that are seasonally available and abundant.
SOURCE: Vermont Fish & Wildlife Dept.
(Pat’s Note: The gray fox is NOT the state mammal for Vermont…lol)
Connecticut designated the sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus) the official state animal in 1975.
The sperm whale played a significant role in the history of Connecticut (in the 1800’s Connecticut ranked second only to Massachusetts in the whaling industry). The sperm whale is now on the federal endangered species list.
The largest of the toothed whales, sperm whales grow to 70 feet in length and can weigh 59 tons. The brain of the sperm whale is the largest of any animal (reaching up to 20 pounds). The sperm whale was immortalized as Herman Melville’s leviathan “Moby Dick.”
Among whales, the sperm whale is unique in both appearance and social behavior. The enormous box- like head sets it apart physically from other whales. Females and their young travel in permanent units (pods), while the much larger males rove between breeding and feeding grounds, and also among groups of females when breeding. Sperm whales are among the deepest diving cetaceans, capable of diving two miles in search of deep water squid, their main food source (a sperm whale consumes about one ton of food each day – squid, fish, skate, octopus, etc.). Sperm whales can be found in all oceans of the world.
Members of a whale pod form strong and long lasting bonds. They protect young calves and the sick or injured of their pod. Other females protect a calf that is not yet capable of deep diving while the mother dives for food.
From Sperm Whale: American Cetacean Society Fact Sheet:
The sperm whale’s head houses a large reservoir containing spermaceti, a clear liquid oil that hardens to a wax- like consistency when cold, and has long been prized by whalers. Ambergris (a strange substance found in large lumps in the lower intestine of sperm whales, formed around squid beaks that remain in the stomach) was used in the making of perfume, and continues to be valuable in spite of its widespread replacement by synthetics.
Sperm whales are still fairly numerous, but selective killing of the larger breeding-age males over many years upset the male-to-female ratio, and the birth rate has seriously declined in some populations. Sperm whales were killed in two massive hunts, the Moby Dick whalers who worked mainly between 1740-1880, and the modern whalers whose operations peaked in 1964, when 29,255 were killed. Most recent estimates suggest a global population of about 360,000 animals down from about 1,100,000 before whaling.
The bighorn sheep’s compact body is muscular, with chocolate brown fur trimmed in white on the muzzle, rump, and belly. Most weigh 160 to 250 pounds, but males may weigh more than 350 pounds and stand around 40 inches at the shoulder. Their wide-set eyes are situated well forward on the head, providing a wide arc of exceptional vision. The bighorn sheep’s keen eyesight, hearing, and sense of smell help it detect and avoid predators.
The bighorn sheep is one of two species of wild sheep in North America with large horns, the other being the Dall sheep (Ovis dalli). The latest science shows that “bighorn sheep” is one species, with three living subspecies: the Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis canadensis), the Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis sierrae)—formerly called the California bighorn sheep, and the desert bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis nelsoni).
Large, curved horns—borne by the males, or rams—can weigh up to 30 pounds, as much as the rest of the bones in the male’s body. Older rams have massive horns that can grow over three feet long with a more than one-foot circumference at the base. Females, or ewes, also have horns, but they are short with only a slight curvature. Both rams and ewes use their horns as tools for eating and fighting.
Although not as agile as mountain goats, bighorn sheep are well-equipped for climbing the steep terrain that keeps their predators at bay. The outer hooves are modified toenails shaped to snag any slight protrusion, while a soft inner pad provides a grip that conforms to each variable surface.
Diet
In warmer months, bighorn sheep browses on grasses, clover, and sedges. It transitions to eating woody plants like willow and sage in colder months. In desert areas, bighorn sheep often eat plants such as holly and cacti.
As ruminants, grass-eating bighorn sheep have a complex four-part stomach that enables them to eat large portions rapidly before retreating to cliffs or ledges where they can thoroughly rechew and digest their food, safe from predators. Then bacteria takes over, breaking down plant fibers for digestion. The sheep also absorb moisture during this digestive process, enabling them to go for long periods without water.
Behavior
Mature males spend most of their year in bachelor flocks apart from groups of females and young sheep. Young females generally remain in their mother’s group (led by an older ewe) for life. All ewes are subordinate to even young rams with bigger horns.
Males depart their mother’s group around two to four years of age and join a group of rams. This is sometimes a tough time of wandering until the young rams find a male group, and they will sometimes take up with other species out of loneliness.
Life History
It is during the mating season or “rut” that the rams join the female groups and engage in fierce competition to establish access rights to ewes. Their dominance hierarchy is based on age and size (including horn size), which usually prevents rams younger than seven years old from mating. Younger males will mate sooner if dominant rams in their group are killed.
Mating competition involves two rams running toward one another at speeds around 40 miles an hour and clashing their curled horns, which produces a sound that can be heard a mile away. Most of the characteristic horn-clashing between rams occurs during the pre-rut period, although this behavior may occur to a limited extent throughout the year.
Longevity depends on population status. In declining or stable populations, most sheep live more than 10 years. Even in areas where no hunting occurs, females rarely make it past 15 and males rarely live beyond 12. Juvenile mortality is variable and can be quite high, ranging from 5 percent to 30 percent. Sheep between two and six years old have low mortality.
Fun Fact
Bighorn sheep groups protect themselves from predators by facing different directions, allowing them to keep watch on their surroundings.
The grizzly bear is a kind of brown bear. Many people in North America use the common name “grizzly bear” to refer to the smaller and lighter-colored bear that occurs in interior areas and the term “brown bear” to refer to the larger and typically darker-colored bear in coastal areas. However, most of these bears are now considered the same subspecies.
Grizzly bears are large and range in color from very light tan (almost white) to dark brown. They have a dished face, short, rounded ears, and a large shoulder hump. The hump is where a mass of muscles attach to the bear’s backbone and give the bear additional strength for digging. They have very long claws on their front feet that also give them extra ability to dig after food and to dig their dens.
Grizzly bears weigh upward of 700 pounds. The males are heavier than the females and can weigh about 400 to 600 pounds. A large female can weigh about 250 to 350 pounds in the lower-48 States.
Diet
Grizzly bears are omnivores. The most commonly eaten kinds of plants are fleshy roots, fruits, berries, grasses, and forbs. If grizzly bears are on the hunt, their prey can include fish (especially salmon), rodents like ground squirrels, carrion, and hoofed animals like moose, elk, caribou, and deer. They are especially good at catching the young of these hoofed species. Grizzly bears can also target domestic animals like cattle and sheep and cause economically important losses for some ranchers. The National Wildlife Federation has a program on National Forest lands surrounding Yellowstone Park to prevent attacks on domestic livestock by purchasing the grazing allotments from ranchers.
Behavior
Grizzly bears use sounds, movement, and smells to communicate. They growl, moan, or grunt, especially when females are communicating with their young or during mating season when male bears can fight each other fiercely for the opportunity to mate with receptive females. Grizzly bears also rub their bodies on trees to scratch and to let other bears know they are there.
Life History
Winter can be very tough for many species of wildlife, because the season brings harsh weather and little food. Grizzly bears hibernate in warm dens during the winter to minimize energy expenditure at a time when natural foods are not available and to permit their tiny young to be born in a warm and secure environment. Throughout the summer and autumn, grizzly bears build up fat reserves by consuming as much food as they can find. In late fall or winter, the bears find a hillside and dig a hole to serve as their winter den. When inside the den, grizzly bears slow down their heart rate, reduce their temperature and metabolic activity, and live off stored fat reserves. Pregnant females give birth in the dens and nurse their cubs until they are large enough to venture outside in the spring as snow melts and new food become available.
Depending on the length of the winter season, grizzly bears can stay in their dens for up to seven months. They don’t even go to the bathroom during this time. Grizzly bear hibernation is not as deep of a sleep as some other hibernators, like bats or ground squirrels, and they will quickly wake up when disturbed. Females with newborn cubs are the last to leave their dens in the spring. Females with older cubs emerge earlier and solitary females and males are the first to exit dens in the spring. Pregnant females are the first to enter dens in the fall followed by females with cubs; solitary males enter dens the latest.
Grizzly bears begin to look for mates in the spring and early summer. Females can mate with more than one male during her breeding season. When a female grizzly becomes pregnant, the development of the embryo temporarily stops for several months, a process called “delayed implantation.” Delayed implantation is characteristic of all bear species and some other families of carnivores, including weasels and seals. If a female bear is unable to gain enough weight during the summer and fall, her body will tell her to not proceed with the pregnancy and the embryo will reabsorb. This gives her a head start on gaining enough weight to have a successful pregnancy the following year. When female grizzly bears enter hibernation, the embryo implants in her uterus and begins gestation. In January or February, female grizzly bears give birth to one to four cubs (usually two). The female will care for her young inside the den until spring, when they finally step out into the world.
The mother cares for her young for at least two more years, feeding and protecting them. When the cubs are two and a half years old, they typically separate from their mother. In areas with little food, the cubs may stay with their mother longer. Typically separation happens when the female enters breeding condition and attracts males, which can be a threat to the cubs. At around five years of age, grizzly bears reach sexual maturity.
Grizzly bears are mainly solitary and territorial, except for mothers and their cubs, or when a plentiful food source is discovered. Grizzly bears are known to congregate at rivers with many fish and at improperly fenced garbage dumps. Grizzlies can run pretty fast, reaching speeds as fast as 35 miles an hour for very short sprints. They are good swimmers too. Cubs can climb trees to evade danger, but they lose this ability as their front claws grow longer. Grizzly bears can live to be 30 years in the wild, but most die before age 25.
Fun Fact
Grizzly bears received their name because their brown fur can be tipped with white. This gives them a “grizzled” look, especially when backlit by the sun.
White-tailed deer, also known as “whitetail deer,” or “Virginia deer,” are an extremely common American mammal. These deer are the most widespread wild ungulate, or hoofed mammal, in the Americas. These frequently sighted animals have a number of sub-species throughout their range. Read on to learn about the whitetail deer.
Description of the Whitetail Deer
Whitetails range in color from reddish brown in warmer months, to grey in the winter and fall. The most recognizable characteristic is the deer’s white under-tail, which is visible when the tail is raised. The males, known as “bucks,” grow new antlers yearly. It is extremely rare for the does (female deer) to grow antlers.
Interesting Facts About the Whitetail Deer
While virtually everyone in the central and eastern United States has seen a white-tailed deer, most people know very little about them. There are a number of interesting tidbits about whitetail deer.
Bergmann’s Rule – Though there are exceptions, white-tailed deer typically follow the Bergmann’s rule, which states that the average size of an animal increases the farther away you get from the equator. The average weight of an adult male white-tailed deer is about 150 lbs., but in the northernmost end of their range the deer can exceed 250 lbs.!
Substantial Subspecies – Scientists estimate that there may be between 30 and 40 sub species of whitetail deer across their range. Some examples include the Columbian white-tailed deer, and the Florida key deer. Both of these sub species are listed as endangered on the S. Endangered Species Act.
Not-so-Camouflaged Camo – Despite the popularity of wearing intricate camouflage while hunting deer, safety-color orange shirts and hats work just as well as fancy leaf patterns! Whitetail deer have dichromatic vision, meaning that they see blue and yellow colors the best. This also means that they are very poor at distinguishing orange and red colors.
Velvet Cover – White-tailed deer bucks shed their antlers every year, and grow a new pair. The growing antlers take time to develop, and during this time a soft skin called “velvet” protects them. The velvet is filled with many veins, which supply blood to the antlers, allowing rapid growth to occur. Once the antlers are fully-grown, the velvet dries out and is shed.
Habitat of the Whitetail Deer
White-tail deer are extremely common and widespread because they are generalists. This means that they can adapt to a wide range of habitats. They are commonly found in temperate forests, partially wooded lowlands, open prairies, savannahs, mountains, tropical forests, and wetlands.
Distribution of the Whitetail Deer
In North America, whitetail deer can be found as far north as Canada, and as far south as Mexico. Their range spreads all the way to the eastern coast of the United States. They can also be seen across Central America, and into the northern edges of South America into Peru.
Diet of the Whitetail Deer
White-tailed deer eat a wide variety of vegetation. They frequently feed on legumes, including alfalfa and clover, but will also eat the shoots and leaves of many other plants and grasses. In desert habitats they will also feed on cactus. Whitetails have also been known to eat fruit, corn, acorns, mushrooms, and poison ivy.
Horns or Antlers?
Many people incorrectly refer to deer antlers as “horns,” but horns and antlers are extremely different. While deer, elk, and moose have antlers, cows, sheep, bison, and buffalo have horns.
Horns
Horns are made with a base of bone growing from the skull of the animal, similar to antlers. A sheath of keratin, the same material that makes up your fingernails and hair, covers the base of bone. The horns grow continuously throughout the animal’s life, and are never shed. Because the horns are live bone and keratin, they will bleed if broken.
Antlers
Antlers are shed every year, and will regrow. They are made entirely of bone. Antlers have no center “core,” consisting instead of a single structure of hardened bone.
Whitetail Deer and Human Interaction
Deer and humans have multiple negative interactions. Humans hunt deer, both for sustenance, as trophies or sport, and to control deer populations. Overgrown deer populations can cause the spread of disease, and vulnerable plant species to be decimated. Deer are also kept as livestock in a number of countries for their meat, antlers, and fur. Deer cause millions of car collisions each year, an increasingly serious problem in the United States.
Domestication
Farmed populations of whitetail deer have been domesticated to some extent. While they are not fully domesticated, like cattle or sheep, they have undergone selective breeding. When farming deer, farmers selectively breed docile individuals with good meat production, and large antlers.
Whitetail Deer Care
White-tailed deer must be provided with a large enclosure that allows for plenty of foraging. The fence should be at least eight feet tall, as deer are extremely proficient jumpers. Their diet should also be supplemented with vitamins and minerals, as well as additional vegetation if their habitat does not provide enough for them to maintain their weight.
Behavior of the Whitetail Deer
Bucks will compete amongst one another to determine a dominance hierarchy. More dominant males are able to reproduce with more females. During the breeding season, known as “rut,” the males will battle and attempt to breed with as many females as possible. During this time, they will lose significant amounts of weight, as they rarely eat or rest.
Reproduction of the Whitetail Deer
Females become receptive to mating in late October and early November, and they will give birth in May or June. She will give birth to 1 to 3 baby deer, called “fawns,” and nurse them for 8-10 weeks. Young bucks will stay with their mothers for about one year, and females will stay for two years.
Ringtails are cat-like mammals that are related to raccoons. Many people also call them “ringtail cats,” “ring-tailed cats,” “bassarisks,” and “miner’s cats.” While they are not genetically related to cats, they do look quite similar to felines. Instead, ringtails are in the Procyonidae family, along with raccoons, kinkajous, coatis, and olingos.
Description of the Ringtail
These cat-like mammals have buff-brown fur, with relatively large ears, and a long tail. As their name suggests, their tail has black and white rings, much like raccoons and coatis have.
Their tail is usually just as long as their body, between 12 and 17 in. long. With body and tail combined, ringtails measure around 24 – 34 in. long. However, they are lean creatures, and typically weigh around 2 lbs.
Interesting Facts About the Ringtail
Ringtails are interesting looking creatures, with interesting behavior and traits. There are a number of different fun facts about ringtails, read a few below!
Miner’s Cat – One of the more unusual nicknames of the ringtail is the miner’s cat. During the 1800s, miners in Arizona and California commonly kept these creatures as pets. Apparently, the miners were quite fond of their ringtail companions because they were wonderfully efficient mouse catchers!
Musky Mouthful– Ringtails are usually smaller than the average housecat, and half of their length is tail alone. Because of this, they commonly fall prey to many different predators. To avoid becoming lunch, ringtails excrete a strong-smelling musk when startled. This musk confuses and deters many different predators.
Cat-Like Climbers – Ringtails may look a little like cats, but they sure can climb better than most housecats! They can rotate their ankles over 180º, which allows them to climb up and down trees easily. Ringtails can even change direction on a branch by doing a cartwheel!
Striped Tail – This mammal’s long tail is not just for show. While their tail is not prehensile, and they cannot use it to grip branches, it is still quite useful. Ringtails use their tails to help them balance while climbing. Because their tail is so long, it works very efficiently as a counterbalance.
Habitat of the Ringtail
While these creatures live in a few different types of habitats, they live in arid environments most frequently. Rocky deserts are their favorite, but they also live in desert-like habitats near water sources. In these ecosystems, they nest in abandoned structures, mineshafts, hollow trees, caves, and more. These mammals also live in pine, conifer, and juniper forests with low rainfall.
Distribution of the Ringtail
Ringtails live in the Southwestern United States and across Mexico. Populations live in southern Oregon, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, parts of Kansas, and Texas.
Its range in Mexico is from the United States border south to Oaxaca. They are widespread in Mexico, but their distribution in the northern ends of their range is rather spotty.
Diet of the Ringtail
Ringtails are omnivores, but most of their diet consists of animals rather than plants. Their primary prey includes mice, rats, rabbits, ground squirrels, insects, and other small mammals.
Some less common food sources include fish, snakes, birds, lizards, and carrion. They also eat fruit, and some of their favorites include prickly pear, juniper, blackberries, hack, persimmon, and more. Their diet changes based upon the availability of food, for example, when mice are plentiful, they eat more mice.
Ringtail and Human Interaction
Humans and ringtails actually lived quite harmoniously. Because miners recognized their ability to catch mice and other pests, they often kept the creatures as pets.
Nowadays, it is illegal to own a ringtail as a pet without proper permits, though humans still acknowledge them as pest control. As with any animal, habitat destruction can be a problem, but their population is stable. The IUCN lists these animals as Least Concern.
Domestication
Though humans commonly kept these creatures as pets, they never formally domesticated ringtails.
Does the Ringtail Make a Good Pet
Ringtails did make good pets to miners, but that was because there were plenty of vermin for them to hunt. In a typical household, ringtails would not make good pets, simply because there wouldn’t be enough for them to do.
These creatures are wild animals, and when miners kept them as pets, they slept during the day, and hunted for vermin at night. Their relationship was really more of a partnership than anything. The miners provided safe nests to sleep in, and the ringtails hunted the pesky mice.
Ringtail Care
In zoos, ringtails need a little more stimulation, because they can’t exactly let them out to hunt mice at night. Instead, the zookeepers give the little predators a variety of puzzles, new scents, and fun toys, as well as training them using positive reinforcement.
These animals eat a diet of small mammals, like mice, rats, rabbits, and more. Because their natural diet also contains fruit, zookeepers give them a variety of fruits as treats. Their habitats have plenty of hiding places, and a variety of objects to climb and exercise on.
Behavior of the Ringtail
These little mammals are relatively similar to their raccoon cousins. They are nocturnal and active at night, and live alone. Unlike raccoons, ringtails are relatively shy, and avoid human contact.
Rather than roaming suburbs for garbage, these creatures actively spend their nights hunting small prey. They spend the rest of their time marking the boundaries of their territories. Males and females have overlapping territories, but they rarely interact outside of breeding season.
Reproduction of the Ringtail
Females are only receptive to mates in the spring. After mating, the male brings the female food during her 45 – 50 day gestation period. The female usually gives birth to 2 – 4 offspring, called “cubs.”
It takes a month for the cubs to open their eyes, and they will not learn to hunt until they are 4 months old. Once the cubs are 10 months old, they can reproduce themselves, and leave their mother.
Known as moose across North America, but called elk in Europe, Alces alces is the largest member of the deer family. The Alaska-Yukon race (Alces alces gigas) is the largest of all of these creatures. Adult moose can range in size from 800 pounds (small adult female) to 1,600 pounds (large adult male), and they can be up to almost 6 feet tall. Moose can range in color from golden brown to almost black, depending on the season and the age of the animal. Newborn calves have a red-brown coat that fades to a light rust color within a few weeks. By late summer, the calves have shed this coat and grown one that is similar in texture and color to that of adults.
Moose are often easily recognized by their antlers, carried only by the males. These bony protrusions form within the first year, and are produced every summer after that. Trophy class bulls are found throughout Alaska, but the largest come from the western portion of the state. The largest sized antlers are usually produced when bulls are 10 – 12 years old, but bulls can reach trophy size as young as 6 years of age. In the wild, moose rarely live more than 16 years.
Hunting
Moose are valued for their meat and as a game animal. At least 7,000 moose are harvested annually in Alaska, amounting to about 3.5 million pounds of meat.
In 2007, Alaskans took home 90 percent of the 7,400 total moose harvested. About 6,750 moose were harvested by Alaskans and 685 by nonresident hunters. The resident take is certainly higher than this, based on information collected by the Division of Subsistence, and considerable unreported or illegal harvest likely occurs in some areas.
Viewing
Wildlife viewing is becoming increasingly important in Alaska. In a questionnaire completed by users of the Koyukuk Controlled Use Area, moose is the species people want to see the most. While the majority of respondents reported they were hunting only, an increasing number of people were both hunting and viewing, or only viewing. Moose viewing is particularly important along the road system.
Managing moose involves looking at predators, habitat, human harvest, other non-harvest mortality (severe winters, vehicles and trains), and the composition of populations – cows, calves and bulls – and these elements are touched upon in this section. Population density, habitat, and harvest vary from area to area, so each Game Management Unit (GMU) is presented separately in this section.
In some areas, habitat limits the potential size of moose populations, and concentration of moose and open habitat creates the potential for excessive harvests in accessible areas. In other regions it is unknown whether predators or habitat are more limiting moose populations, although some are clearly held back by bear and wolf predation. Moose mortality due to vehicles is significant in some areas where human population and vehicle traffic continues to increase. Land clearing activities associated with agriculture, development and road construction has been responsible for the increase in moose browse that attract moose to highways. The number of moose killed by trains seems to be related to snowfall and varies widely from year to year.
Without fire or other disturbance, forests mature and browse – and moose populations – decrease. Fire, mechanical manipulation, and post-logging site work, which encourage hardwood regeneration, are beneficial for moose habitat and have been conducted on some sites. Ice-scouring also helps to rejuvenate willow stands. After logging, if site preparation is not conducted or is done inadequately, blue-joint grass initially crowd out hardwood and spruce seedlings, creating less desirable moose habitat and slowing forest succession.
SOURCE: ALAKSA DEPT. OF FISH & GAME
I found these additional interesting facts from the coniferous forest website:
Interesting Facts
The antlers of the male Alaskan moose are the largest in the deer family.
The Alaskan moose is widely hunted throughout its range and its meat is considered a delicacy in those snow-laden regions.
The antlers of two fighting bulls sometimes get locked, and they eventually starve to death.
Black bears are native to Alabama. When the state joined the Union in 1819, they could be found in every corner of the Yellowhammer state. “Their demise occurred more than a century ago due to over harvesting and habitat manipulation,” Hannah Leeper, a bear researcher at Auburn University told us. As a result, the state hosts the smallest and most fragmented black bear populations in North America.
In 2006, the plight of the Mobile black bears was amplified by Escambia County students, who campaigned to have the bears designated our state mammal. On April 12th of that year, Governor Bob Riley signed a law making the black bear our official state mammal.
That act elevated the bear’s significance.
In the 2010s a second population of bears was discovered in DeKalb and Cherokee counties in Northeast Alabama. This is a game-changer. These bears are recolonizing from the north Georgia bear population. Early research studies of these bears are encouraging. The mothers are producing larger-than-usual litters and the cubs are healthy, like our four cubs.
In 2014, the state of Alabama secured federal funding that focuses on species at risk. ‘State Wildlife’ grants will fund black bear research in partnership with Auburn University until 2024 and hopefully beyond.
“We are just learning how black bears behave in Alabama,” stated Traci Woods, Habitat and Species Conservation Coordinator with the Department of Conservation. “Why is their population growing or not growing? What is contributing to their survival or mortality? We are just now getting good population estimates and information on how they are moving.”
Alabama’s black bears go by two nicknames. Berry bears or honey bears. And yes, they are kin to the most famous bear of them all—Winnie the Pooh.
When Beth Sewell, an educator at the JSU Field School asks students to describe the size of our bears, they have an image of big 600 to 1000 pound menacing grizzly or brown bear from out West. She has to assure them our black bears are much smaller, with a kinder temperament.
For example, female black bears in Alabama weigh 125-135 pounds. Males are about twice that, the size of an Auburn University linebacker.
They are omnivores. Their diet? Pretty much anything a racoon would eat—insects, roots, berries, acorns and other nuts, mushrooms, grasses and other plant materials, as well as small mammals such as mice and ground squirrels, fish, crayfish, and of course rubbish left by humans in trash cans and campsites. Vegetation normally makes up over 80 percent of their diet.
North Alabama bears now have a viable population.
Bears generally avoid humans.
Virtually all the dens located in south Alabama were ‘nests,’ very similar to the nests that birds build.
North Alabama bears mostly utilize wind rows and rock outcrops.
North Alabama population is estimated at 35-50. North Alabama population is growing. These bears have a good genetic influence, have quality denning habitat and larger tracts of unfragmented land with suitable habitat. The northern population could triple within the next 5 years.
The state expects Birmingham will see more sightings of male bears roaming in the summer months, not necessarily establishing a population. Be mindful. Male bears go on walkabouts that may extend a hundred miles from dens in North Alabama.
The people of Birmingham are going to have to adapt to that and live with it 20 years down the road.
Are we going to see moms and cubs? Very unlikely. Hannah Leeper’s research indicates the bears in the Northeast are moving very slowly southward. She does not expect the bears to take up permanent residence anywhere near Birmingham because of the poor habitat—not enough unbroken forests and people around.
JSU’s Sewell concluded:
‘Bears are the state mammal for a reason. They were here first. The fact that they are naturally returning is almost a miracle. Welcome the bears—they should be revered as a sacred species. They are beautiful.”
Sew Colorful 