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bear at an outdoor grill

Bears’ fall eat-a-thon: what’s on the menu at your house?

In the fall, bears are hard at work searching for plenty of food so they can fatten up for the winter ahead. The hunt for food starts in late summer as berries and fruits ripen and shifts into high gear when calorie-packed nuts and seeds (soft and hard mast) are available. By fall bears are foraging up to 20 hours a day in a race against the clock. This annual power-eating ...

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Be BearWise Outdoors

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Be BearWise at Home

How bears beat the heat

Summer is prime time for spotting bears swimming in lakes and ponds, splashing in swimming pools and hot tubs, emptying kiddie pools and stretching out in the shade. People can wear light-colored, breathable clothes, big hats and stay inside in the ...
bear raiding trash can

Make it a BearWise spring

If the bears in your area aren’t up and about yet, they will be soon. Why wait until a bear is checking out your bird feeder, pet food or garbage? A few hours of prevention now can help keep bears ...

What’s on the bear menu? Everything

Bears are attracted to anything that smells; it doesn’t even need to smell good. Garbage, compost piles, dirty diapers, pizza boxes, empty beverage cans...to a hungry black bear, it all smells like something good to eat. Bears are curious and ...

The Bear Facts

black bear silhouette

The Cocaine Bear: What really happened in 1985

At least one part of the movie, Cocaine Bear, is actually based on facts. A black bear did die in the Georgia woods of a cocaine overdose in the fall of 1985. In the movie, the bear goes on a ...

What are bears up to this winter?

Rest and repair: January finds bears across much of North America tucked snugly into their dens, living off the fat reserves they worked so hard to accumulate while their bodies rest and repair injuries. Exactly how bears do this is ...

Fall is power-eating time for bears

Bears’ appetites are biologically programmed to go into hyperdrive in the fall because they need to put on a thick layer of life-sustaining fat before they turn in for the winter. This annual power-eating marathon is called hyperphagia. Hyperphagia is in ...