Today is National Black Bear Day, so what better time to do a post on the black bear. It is also World Environment Day and black bears play such an important part in our environment and within their ecosystem.
Historically black bears (Ursus americanus) were at home throughout most of North America from the east coast to the west coast, and as far north as Alaska and all the way down to Mexico. These days black bears occupy only 60% of their original range. This is mainly due to hunting and habitat loss.
But black bears are actually extremely import for their ecosystem. For starers they help to enrich and add nutrients to the soil. During the salmon run bears drag salmon carcasses onto the land to feed on, the leftover salmon carcasses then breakdown and add nutrients (such as nitrogen) into the soil and this helps with plant growth. Scientists can actually use the health of a forest to gauge the health of salmon in a nearby river.
Bears also LOVE berries and their love of berries is great for seed dispersal. As they eat the berries they process the nutrients and digest the seeds, which re-enter the ecosystem in the form of scat (or poop!). Bears move around a lot so can disperse these seeds great distances.
Bears are also good at keeping mammal populations from overpopulating. Without bears large grazing animals would overpopulate and overgraze plants and grasses.
Black bear are at risk as a result of habitat destruction, over-hunting, international trade and human ignorance.
Small things we can do to help bears:
Information in this post was obtained from Nature Canada.
All images in this post were taken by and remain the Copyright of Ryan Sault unless stated otherwise. You can see more photos at:
website: https://saultphotography.com/
Instagram: @roaming.rammie
