Photo Ark
North American Black Bear
Ursus americanus
Omaha Zoo'S Wildlife Safari Park, Omaha, Nebraska, USA
Least Concern
Heavily persecuted since European settlement of North America, compounded by loss of forest cover, American black bear populations rapidly declined, and probably reached a nadir in the early 1900s. Greater state and provincial protection for bears enabled populations to slowly recover. More rapid growth occurred with increasing protective measures since the late 1980s (Williamson 2002). By 1999, 60% of U.S. and Canadian states and provinces reported increasing populations, and other jurisdictions appeared to be either stable or fluctuating with no clear trend (Garshelis and Hristienko 2006). Many of these trend assessments, though, were not derived from serial estimates of population ... Read More
Throughout most of its range, this species is not threatened. Legal sport hunting is well controlled by state and provincial agencies to fit management objectives, and most states and provinces that harvest bears have a management plan (Hristienko and McDonald 2007). American black bears are harvested as a game species in all 12 Canadian provinces and territories where they exist and in 31 U.S. states. Since the early 2000s, 6 states with increasing bear populations opened bear hunting seasons ― Florida, New Jersey and Maryland, after 21-, 33- and 51-year closures, respectively, and Kentucky, Oklahoma, and Nevada for the first ... Read More
Garshelis, D.L., Scheick, B.K., Doan-Crider, D.L., Beecham, J.J. & Obbard, M.E. 2016. Ursus americanus. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2016: e.T41687A114251609. http://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2016-3.RLTS.T41687A45034604.en