Montana’s 1,031 black bear records trace the state’s forested mountain west rather than its plains. Glacier National Park alone accounts for 413 of them, and the counties that lead the record, Glacier, Flathead, and Missoula, follow the timbered ranges of the northern Rockies down through the Gallatin and Lolo national forests.
The smaller, tree-climbing of two bears
Montana is one of the few states where black bears share ground with grizzlies, and the black bear is the smaller, more arboreal of the two. Cubs and adults alike climb readily, and the species favors heavy timber over open country, which is why the record sits so tightly on wild country like the Bob Marshall and Absaroka-Beartooth wildernesses. Even there, black bears are quiet, solitary animals that give people a wide berth when they can; most hikers in Montana bear country never see one in a lifetime of walking.
Berries, then a long winter sleep
After leaving the den in spring, a Montana black bear grazes new grasses and sedges, then shifts to huckleberries and other soft mast as summer ripens. The record shows the shape of that year: counts climb from May into a broad June-through-September plateau, when bears feed long hours to build fat, then fall near zero from November through March while bears den, with cubs born in the den in midwinter.
Status in Montana
NatureServe ranks the American black bear S5, Secure, in Montana, and the species is native to the state. USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous here.
Full species profile
