Wyoming’s 3,234 black bear records draw one of the most lopsided maps in this atlas. Park and Teton counties supply nearly all of them, 1,935 and 1,227 respectively, because Yellowstone National Park alone holds 2,412 records and Grand Teton National Park another 647. Beyond that core, a thin scatter through Fremont, Sublette, Sheridan, and Albany counties marks bears in the state’s other forested ranges, from the Wind River country to the Bighorns and the Medicine Bow.
A species of mountain islands
Wyoming is mostly open country, and black bears keep to the parts that are not. They are animals of forested slopes, aspen draws, and berry-covered burns, moving between timber and meadows to feed on grasses, sedges, insects, and the berries and pine seeds of the high country. The broad sagebrush basins between ranges are not bear habitat, so Wyoming bears live on what amount to forested islands separated by dry lowland. Even on the best of those islands, most hikers never see one; bears detect people early and give them a wide berth.
A short season at altitude, and a color trap
The active year runs late and brief here: reports jump from 30 in April to 598 in May and 1,125 in June, then fall away to near nothing by November. One caution belongs on any Wyoming bear page. Black bears in this state come in cinnamon and brown coats as well as black, and they share the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem with grizzlies, so coat color alone cannot tell the two species apart.
Status in Wyoming
NatureServe ranks the American black bear S5, Secure, in Wyoming, and the species is native to the state. USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous here.
Full species profile
