Black Bears Emerge at a Sensitive Time Bears struggle in the search for the first new foods of the season, despite the trend of warmer, earlier springs
S
pring is a time of awakening in the Smokies. The earliest ephemeral wildflowers begin to break through a soggy carpet of leaf litter. Bright new blooms fill the branches of red maples, serviceberries, and redbuds. Insects, bats, and songbirds follow soon after, and with them emerges the black bear—hungry after weathering a long winter of dormancy. “The first weeks out of the den are the hardest,” said NPS Supervisory Wildlife Biologist Bill Stiver. “It’s too early in the year for most of the bears’ favorite foods like berries and acorns to be available, so the bears just eat whatever they can find. That might be grasses, seeds, tree buds, roots, or flowers.”
Smokies Guide Spring 2020 • 12
Photos by Bill Lea
