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The Art of Gluttony: Bears and their Vittles

© Gerald Eugene Smith

One of the best ways, bear researchers have found, to find out what bears eat is to examine bear scat. In Glacier Natural Park in August, for example, black bear scat will have lots of small purple lumps from the blueberries they have eaten. Grizzly scat, on the other hand, will have lots of small silver lumps from all those bear bells that the hikers wear... All kidding aside, examining bear scat is the most important source of information about the dietary habits of bears.

Although bears are part of the great Carnivore family of mammals (the great majority of meat-eating mammals belong to this family), only the polar bear is a true carnivore. There are other specialists too: the panda bear is almost a pure herbivore and the Indian sloth bear is primarily an insectivore. The others are true omnivores. They are simultaneously carnivores, insectivores, herbivores and scavengers. John Muir once stated that grizzlies ate everything except granite. Even the three specialists show omnivorous tendencies. Researchers in China have found pandas like meat and researchers in the Arctic have often noted polar bears' fondness for seaweed. But most bears are primarily omnivores and prepared to take advantage of any quality food source they find in their environment - a trait that often leads to conflict with humans.

Different bear populations often show significantly different diets. Black bears in the U.S. are primarily plant-eaters, especially in the food-rich deciduous forests of the Eastern U.S. Here, the broadleaf forests are loaded with sugar-, fat- and protein-rich treats for bears: berries and cherries, beechnuts and acorns (and in the past chestnuts), pawpaws and crabapples, hazelnuts, black walnuts and hickories, and much else. It is a veritable culinary paradise for black bears and they grow bigger here than anywhere else. In the West, food is a little sparser, but blueberries play a big role, as do pine nuts. Insects are especially important here and black bears favor ants, wasps and bees. In some areas, the bears like tent caterpillars and are among the very few animals that will eat them. But an animal that will cheerfully chow down on a nest full of yellow-jackets has a tough stomach! Along the north Pacific coastal areas, salmon is the most important food for both black bears and grizzlies. In the northern woods of Canada, plant foods are limited with short growth seasons and the bears tend to be much more predatory. In the tundra of Northern Labrador, a group of black bears has recently migrated north of the tree-line, but they have become almost as carnivorous as polar bears in the process.

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