West Virginia is bear country in a way few eastern states can match. The state’s 474 records spread across 39 counties, but they concentrate along the high Allegheny ridges: Pocahontas, Fayette, Tucker, Randolph, and Nicholas counties lead, and Monongahela National Forest anchors the named places with 57 records. Around it the map fills in through New River Gorge National Park and Preserve, Dolly Sods Wilderness, and the wildlife management areas ringing the high country: Potomac, Otter Creek, Cheat, Tea Creek, and Cranberry.
Living on the Appalachian mast crop
Black bears here run on the hardwood economy. Spring brings grasses, sedges, and insects; summer adds blackberries and cherries along old roads and clearings; and autumn acorns and hickory nuts decide the year. In good mast years bears feed for much of the day and den fat; in poor ones they roam farther, which is when they turn up along roads and in low hollows where people notice them. For all that habitat, most visitors to the Monongahela never see a bear. A black bear’s first response to people is to leave.
A gentler winter, an earlier spring
Reports rise through April and May as bears emerge, crest in July with the breeding season and summer foods, then ease off through the fall denning period. Winter reports stay low but never quite stop, which fits the state’s relatively mild winters: denning runs shorter here than in the far north, and a bear may stir and wander during a warm spell.
Status in West Virginia
NatureServe ranks the American black bear S5, Secure, in West Virginia, and the species is native to the state. USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous here.
Full species profile
