Tracking Black Bear Trails

Video Transcript

We are Nick and Valerie Wisniewski on behalf of expertvillage.com. We are talking about bear tracks and signs. For more information about these animals, you can check our website at walnuthilltracking.com. When bears move through the forest, often times they will leave a trail. The trail can be a simple depression, a well worn path, through an area like a wetland vegetation area where the vegetation is soft and takes tracks well or sometimes it will be too parallel sets of ruts. A third type of trail is what we are looking at here today. This particular trail you will see alternating round depressions. This trail is what people call a bear ritual trail. In this particular trail, the bear actually modifies the way it walks and it will step in the footprints of bears that have preceded it in years past. The majority of this activity seems to happen around the peak of bear mating season and is often associated with bear bite trees which line the trail on either side. These foot paws will fall anywhere from about 17 inches apart up to 28 inches. It is a fascinating thing to look at. Here we have taken a few of the pine needles out so you can better see these. Often times a trail is very obscure but over the years amazing depressions are worn into the forest surface.

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