Virginia’s 1,497 black bear records trace the mountain spine of the state. Shenandoah National Park leads the named places with 250, Page, Rappahannock, and Warren counties ride the Blue Ridge beside it, and the George Washington and Jefferson national forests carry the pattern south and west toward Mount Rogers. Far from any ridge, Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge holds a separate coastal plain outpost.
Mountain bears, swamp bears
Most Virginia bears are mountain animals, working the oak and hickory slopes of the Appalachians from spring greens through summer berries to the fall acorn crop that decides their winter condition. The Dismal Swamp bears prove the species’ flexibility, living out their lives in dense, wet forest where cover is year-round and the denning season short and mild. In both landscapes the same rule holds: black bears avoid people, and most Virginians, even regulars in the Shenandoah backcountry, have never seen one.
Active months and quiet months
The record rises sharply in May, when bears emerge and travel widely, peaks through June and July with breeding and the dispersal of young bears, and stays strong into fall as feeding dominates their days. From December through February it falls to a small fraction of summer levels, the months when Virginia’s bears lie denned and cubs are born, usually in hollow trees, brush piles, or excavated ground dens on sheltered slopes.
Status in Virginia
NatureServe ranks the American black bear S4, Apparently Secure, in Virginia, and the species is native to the state. USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous here.
Full species profile
