Black bears were thought to be creatures of the night. However, recent studies indicate that they may be most active at twilight and during the day. This activity may alter depending on temperatures and weather. Usually, they are crepuscular (active at dawn & dusk) in spring and nocturnal in autumn. Bears may travel as much as 20 miles in search of food.

In the northern part of their range, black bears go into a dormant period during colder months. This, however, is not hibernation. While body temperature, metabolism, and heart rate decrease, they are easily disturbed. In Florida and other southern states, black bears do not enter a dormant period. Most bears find or dig an earthen den. Bears in southeastern states usually den in tree cavities.

Black bears preparing to den may devote 20 hours a day in autumn eating. They will consume approximately 20,000 calories/day, putting on a five-inch layer of fat. Denning may last 3 to 6 months depending upon latitude.

The Florida black bear dens in tree cavities, banks, logs, and caves, usually alone. It also makes a nest on the ground, particularly in palmetto thickets and tangles of gallberry, fetterbush, and sweet pepperbush.

The basic social unit is a mother with cubs, which stay together for up to 16 months. The adult female maintains a territory and allows her cubs free range. Overlapping female territories rarely occur. Adult males occupy larger territories that encompass two or more adult female territories. Territories usually range over 25 to 100 square miles. Males avoid one another. Young males are not tolerated because they compete for available resources that are needed for the family group. These lone males are left to wander over vast tracts of land in search of an undefended territory where they can establish themselves. When certain food items are concentrated in a particular area, such as at a berry patch or garbage dump, aggregations of black bears occur compatibly, and the social system adjusts accordingly.

Mothers guard their cubs for the first year or so, driving them off when they are about 18 months old.

When two bears meet, a vicious fight often erupts, resulting in wounds and abscesses that would kill most large mammals. Bears usually survive these “meetings.” A bear’s greatest fear is a forest fire, which may send it fleeing in panic.

The male is called a boar and the female, a sow. Young bears are known as cubs.

Mother bear’s milk is 10 times as rich as cow’s milk. At birth, cubs weigh between four to seven pounds when they wander out of the den for the first time. However, by the age of two years they will weigh as much as 100 pounds.

The body parts of bears were often used in medicine. To prevent fits, it was once advised to take fur from a live bear’s belly, boil it in alcohol and put it on the soles of your feet.

“Bear grease,” a salve made form the fat of a bear, was said to cure baldness.

Many Native Americans believe that bears held supernatural powers. The Apache believed bears to be so powerful that it was taboo to touch a bear, dead or alive.

Native Americans who depended on the bear for food or used its fat for cooking killed bears with great ritual and ceremony, apologizing to the bear for the indignity.

Worship of the bear was based on its natural cycles: hibernation represented death and emergence in the spring represented rebirth. The bear cycle is similar to the cycle of death and resurrection that is an integral part of most religions.

Americans from the Ozarks region believed that “A bad winter is betide, if hair grows thick on the bear’s hide.” Moreover, in some cultures, it was the bear, not the groundhog, which predicted if winter would vanish on February 2 or continue another six weeks.

Bear legend, lore and superstition has worked its way into our everyday phrases. The old saying, “like a bear sucking his paws,” refers to someone who is working very hard. This phrase originated with the belief that bears without food would suck its paws to stay alive. To “take a bear by the tooth” means to put oneself in great danger. To describe a person in a foul mood, you might say, “He’s like a bear with a sore paw.”

Settlers killed thousands of black bears for meat, fat, and fur. They cleared the forest habitats for farming. In 1902, attitudes changed drastically when President Theodore Roosevelt refused to shoot a black bear chained to a tree to ensure that the President would not miss. His mercy caught the public’s eye, and “Teddy Bears” were invented to celebrate his compassion.

The black bear is perhaps the strongest symbol for Florida's diverse wildlife. A wide-ranging omnivore, the bear shares habitat with many of Florida's other native species. By protecting the bear and its habitat, conservationists also protect many other animals and plants.