Black Bear
WSC is home to eight black bears. Despite their name, black bears can range in color from tan to cinnamon to black. Weighing about 200-300 pounds as adults, bears are most often mild mannered, becoming violent only when their food supplies or young are threatened, but they have occasionally been known to prey on human beings. They are usually quiet except when feeding or being challenged by other bears.
Bears have a unique method of locomotion, moving both legs on one side of the body at the same time. This makes them look deceptively clumsy when they move.
Actually they are very swift and agile animals and can run as fast as a human. Most bears climb trees easily and also swim very well. Bears are flat-footed animals, their heels resting on the ground as does the human foot. The toes end in enlarged claws that are especially adapted for digging and climbing.
Although bears have very poor eyesight, and only fair hearing, their sense of smell is extremely keen. They are classified as meat eaters, or carnivores, but they are really omnivorous and will eat almost anything.
Their diet can consist of bees, seeds, roots, nuts, berries, and insect larvae. Their meat diet includes rodents, fish, deer, pigs, and lambs.
Except during mating season, bears live mostly solitary lives. They roam the forested areas not disturbed by humans and remain within a particular range. In the fall, bears gorge themselves to prepare for winter's slumber, but not the deep sleep of true hibernation. Their heartbeat drops, as well as their body temperature.
Bears begin to have young between two and six years of age, depending upon local food supplies, and produce a litter of two cubs every second year. Cubs nurse for about two months. During that time the mother does not eat but draws on her stored up fat to produce milk.
The cubs stay with their mother until the next breeding season. Males take no part in rearing cubs.
As a matter of fact, male bears pose a threat to cubs and will eat them if given an opportunity.
Despite the fact that bears in the wild are used to roaming, most of them can adjust easily to life in captivity. Zoo-keepers agree that bears are among the shrewdest and most intelligent of animals kept in zoos.
