Brown bears get a lot of attention in Alaska, but they are not the only bears we saw fishing on our Alaskan adventure. We spotted this sow black bear with her two cubs just below the Mendenhall glacier teaching her twins how to fish for a run of Sockeye Salmon.
The American Black Bear is the smallest of the three bear species found in North America and did you know the black bear is not always black. They vary in color from reddish to light brown to black.
It is estimated that there are at least six hundred thousand black bears in North America with about one hundred thousand living in Alaska.
Black bears have short, non-retractable claws that give them an excellent tree-climbing ability. Their diet consisting of fruits, insects, grubs, small vertebrates, and in late summer and early fall, they eat a lot of salmon here in Alaska. They breed in June or July, and young are born in January or February with an average litter size of two.
For more information on Black Bears or to see any feature we have on the show, make sure to check our outdoors pages at KSLTV.com.
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