Maine’s 363 black bear records reach all sixteen counties, but the weight sits in the big woods: Penobscot, Aroostook, and Piscataquis counties, and the Katahdin country around Baxter State Park and Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument.
A state still made of bear country
Maine holds one of the largest black bear populations in the eastern United States, and the record’s shape shows why: the state is still mostly forest, with spruce-fir and hardwood cover running nearly unbroken across the north and west. Bears work through that country on sedges and insects in spring, berries in summer, and beechnuts and other mast in fall, and the population reaches the coast too, with records from Acadia National Park’s island forests. Even so, a bear in Maine is heard about far more often than seen; the woods are thick, and the animal avoids people as a matter of habit.
Active months, quiet months
Reports swell from May through August, the stretch when bears are breeding and feeding in the open after denning, then taper into autumn as they turn to fall mast and prepare their dens. Winter records are nearly absent; a Maine bear in January is asleep. The summer peak is a fact of the bear’s year, not an invitation, and a person walking in bear country in July is still unlikely to see one, because a bear that hears people coming usually leaves first.
Status in Maine
NatureServe ranks the American black bear S5, Secure, in Maine, and the species is native to its Maine range. USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous in the state.
Full species profile
