Back in February I wrote about people seeing a few Black Bears out of their dens in January around the Land O Lakes area. At that time, I wrote those couple of bears were most likely young males that didn’t build up enough fat reserve to make it through the winter. Since bears only enter the state of TOPOR, (lighter state of hibernation) can wake easily. Those bear seen were out of their dens to look for any food available. Well, let me be the first to tell you, our black bears are waking up.

Well, this past Wednesday night into early Thursday morning, a bear showed up in the yard to dine on bird seed.  Of course, I didn’t get a picture of it tearing it down and enjoying breakfast. This happened a few times last year in the third week of April and even though I know some bears can come out of dens mid-March, I waited to put up my trail cameras. Guess what? The cameras are up and running, and if I get another visit, we will post them.

Bears are pretty much predictable when it comes to exiting their dens. Usually, juvenile males will emerge first, followed by adult males then young females. Then, depending on the weather, Mama with cubs can/will remain in dens until late April or even into early May. When all of this happens, bears have only one thing on their minds, FOOD.

Before entering their dens, bears need to build up their fat reserves to survive the winter and can consume up to and over 20K calories a day. Depending on the size of the bear, most can lose 30% (sows with cubs 40%) of their body weight over the winter and they need to put that weight back on. They also need to restore the fluid loss and will eat snow/ice to rehydrate.

Being that a bear’s usual diet (90%) consists of insects, plants and berries, none of these reliable food sources are available, but bears are opportunist and look for whatever food is available and right now there isn’t much to choose from. Right now, what is accessible are carcasses that other animals have been living on for protein, bird seed or suet’s that provides dens energy and whatever they can find in garbage cans or discarded food in dumpsters.

Until mother nature decides to let our true spring arrive, bears will continue to browse around homes/cabins to fill their bellies.

THINK GREEN GRASS, FLOWERING TREES AND OPEN WATER SOON.