Identifying Black Bear Bites on Pine Trees

Part of the Video Series How to Track a Black Bear

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Learn how to track black bears by identifying bite marks on pine trees in this free video on bear tracking.

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Identifying Black Bear Bites on Pine Trees
Hi! We’re Nick and Valerie Wisniewski on behalf of expertvillage.com. We are here to talk about black bear signs. For more information on these animals, please check our website walnuthilltracking.com. Here we are at a red pine tree and the red pine is one of the favorite trees that black bears use for marking. This kind of marking is intentional. It is not something they do when they are climbing after food. It is not something they do accidentally. It is not something they do to climb a tree to try to get out of safety. What the bears do in this case standing on its hind feet, a bear will bite the tree with an upper and lower canine and as it does that, there are things to look for. One are the wood fibers pulling inwards from each direction and another thing is a pulling out away as the bear pulls away. In this case, there is a vertical strip that is left and the overall pattern that you see is a T. This is indicative of a bear bite. This particular bite is at a very high location. Bears although people think are really massive creatures from tail to nose; they are any where between 40 inches and 70 inches as an adult. But standing on its hind feet, this particular bear was able to sink its canine in 68 inches off the ground indicating that it probably was a male; a very large bear.

About the Expert

Expert: Valerie Wisniewski has been an outdoor skills teacher for over twenty-five years. Read More