California’s 9,381 black bear records trace the state’s wooded spine: the Sierra Nevada from Yosemite and Sequoia national parks north through the Lake Tahoe basin, the Klamath Mountains and the wet north coast around Humboldt County, and the Coast Ranges and Transverse Ranges behind Los Angeles.
A bear of every California forest
Black bears thrive from Redwood National Park’s fog belt to the dry conifer slopes of San Gabriel Mountains National Monument, because the species is a flexible omnivore, taking grasses and sedges in spring, insects and carrion whenever found, then berries and acorns and other mast into the fall. The broad gap the record leaves across the Central Valley is a habitat gap, not a counting one; open farmland offers a bear neither cover nor food. The heavy counts in Los Angeles County come off the mountain front, where bears in the San Gabriels live within sight of one of the largest metropolitan areas on the continent.
A shorter sleep in a mild climate
Reports rise in May and crest through August, then taper into autumn. California’s record never fully goes quiet in winter: along the coast and in the low southern mountains, mild weather and available food let some bears stay active or den only briefly, unlike the deep, months-long dormancy of bears in colder country. In the Sierra, encounters near campgrounds and neighborhoods usually involve bears drawn to human food, and a bear that finds that reward comes back for it.
Status in California
NatureServe lists the black bear as SNR, Unranked, in California, though the species is secure globally at G5. It is native to its California range, and USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous in the state.
Full species profile
