Bears
The North American black bear, euarctos americanus, can grow to be about 5-6 feet long weighing between 200-300 pounds. The black bear once lived throughout most of North America, but human pressure has driven them to the more remote areas. Even though the name signifies black, several colors other than black are very often seen, cinnamon, blonde and reddish brown being the most common. They have good senses of smell and hearing, but have rather poor eye sight.
Bears are omnivores whose preferred diet includes fruits, berries, grains, roots, small mammals, birds, insects, foods offered by humans, garbage, deer, elk, cattle, fish and carrion. Large quantities of food are eaten during the summer and fall until a thick layer of fat develops. A very solitary animal, a bear's winter sleep is not a true hibernation, since its body temperature remains high and they occasionally emerge from their dens to walk around on mild winter days. Bears look clumsy, but can run up to 25 mph, many are powerful swimmers and most can climb trees.
Bears are polygamous, usually mating every other year. One to four cubs are born, weighing less than a pound, during the winter when the bears are in their dens. When spring arrives, the cubs are large enough to leave the den with the female. They will remain with her until they are 18 months old and they are able to fend for themselves.
The Arizona Game & Fish Department recognizes the black bear as a big game animal, and currently maintains both spring and early fall hunts, the limit is one black bear per year. Bears are commonly hunted by predator callers in this state using a method called "spot, stalk and call". With this method, the hunter, using a good pair of binoculars in a very remote area, glasses up a bear, stalks the animal to get within ear shot for the predator call, then begins to call. The reason they are hunted this way is mainly because the bear is somewhat lazy and may or may not come to a call, unless he is fairly close and it doesn't require a lot of energy to get to where the call is coming from. It is a lot of work to hunt the bear this way and most of the time it is quite warm (hot) because bear season starts here in August or September and the weather really hasn't turned cool at that time.
