Loafin' and Loungin' photo compliments of Lee's Photoblog at http:\/\/wildlife.aminus3.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nWhile working in Ontario, I helped contribute to a program called Bear Wise, which was basically\u00a0 an education first approach to teaching people how to co-exist with bears.\u00a0 See, there was an issue of bears feeding on food sources in people’s yards such as dog food, bird feeders, apple trees, etc.\u00a0 Besides simply explaining to people to remove these sources it is also a good idea to explain a bit about bears so they understand why they act this way.<\/p>\n
Today’s Wild Fact <\/em>may help explain why food is so important to bears. It is absolutely crucial for black bears, and especially the females, to be healthy for winter hibernation.\u00a0 Why is it so important that female black bears are healthy for the long winter hibernation? Wow, great question, I wish I would have thought to ask that. Well, black bears exhibit something called embryonic diapause.\u00a0\u00a0 Wait! Before we get into what this means lets back up to the nicer climates of June to August.\u00a0 During these nice and warm months (is it sad that I am already missing summer?) black bears\u00a0 will find, court and mate with each other. If successful the female bear will have a fertilized egg (this isn’t a sex-ed class so I am not going to go into details); however, due to\u00a0 embryonic diapause<\/em> the embryos will not begin to develop until the mother begins to hibernate in the den.\u00a0 Due to this delay the total gestation period for the black bear is around 7 or 8 months but actual embryo development is only 60 days.\u00a0 So what does this have to do with bears getting enough berries throughout the year?\u00a0 Well, as a safety precaution, if a female bear is not fat enough to sustain herself as well as produce and feed her cubs during hibernation then the implanted embryo’s will not develop and no young will be born that year.\u00a0 Even though, the bear has successfully mated in the summer the pregnancy test will still be negative if she is not healthy enough to take care of her cubs and herself.\u00a0 This evolutionary advancement ensures that only healthy bears are born and is a perfect example of the famous “Survival of the Fittest” theory.<\/p>\nDo you have any interesting stories of black bears feeding in your backyard?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
While working in Ontario, I helped contribute to a program called Bear Wise, which was basically\u00a0 an education first approach to teaching people how to co-exist with bears.\u00a0 See, there was an issue of bears feeding on food sources in people’s yards such as dog food, bird feeders, apple trees, etc.\u00a0 Besides simply explaining to people to remove these sources it is also a good idea to explain a bit about bears so they understand why they act this way. Today’s Wild Fact may help explain why food is so important to bears. It is absolutely crucial for black bears, <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":247,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[60,4024],"tags":[348,108,109,4026,110,4025],"yoast_head":"\n
Why Food is Important for Black Bear Survival<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Explains the importance of food for the black bear survival as a species. Discusses embryonic diapause and the evolutionary trends for survival of the fittest.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/www.wild-facts.com\/2009\/wild-fact-979-why-goldilocks-shouldnt-have-eaten-the-porridge-black-bears\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why Food is Important for Black Bear Survival\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Explains the importance of food for the black bear survival as a species. Discusses embryonic diapause and the evolutionary trends for survival of the fittest.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"http:\/\/www.wild-facts.com\/2009\/wild-fact-979-why-goldilocks-shouldnt-have-eaten-the-porridge-black-bears\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Animal Facts For Kids | Wild Facts\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-09-21T07:00:11+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-01-15T23:34:39+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.wild-facts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/09\/da7cb35381db044bcb92b6e297455317_large.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"647\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"847\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Nathan\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Nathan\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.wild-facts.com\/2009\/wild-fact-979-why-goldilocks-shouldnt-have-eaten-the-porridge-black-bears\/\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/www.wild-facts.com\/2009\/wild-fact-979-why-goldilocks-shouldnt-have-eaten-the-porridge-black-bears\/\",\"name\":\"Why Food is Important for Black Bear Survival\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.wild-facts.com\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2009-09-21T07:00:11+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-01-15T23:34:39+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.wild-facts.com\/#\/schema\/person\/4c5129f3f0129e9989a2b850bb2f3cc4\"},\"description\":\"Explains the importance of food for the black bear survival as a species. Discusses embryonic diapause and the evolutionary trends for survival of the fittest.\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"http:\/\/www.wild-facts.com\/2009\/wild-fact-979-why-goldilocks-shouldnt-have-eaten-the-porridge-black-bears\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.wild-facts.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.wild-facts.com\/\",\"name\":\"Animal Facts For Kids | Wild Facts\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.wild-facts.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.wild-facts.com\/#\/schema\/person\/4c5129f3f0129e9989a2b850bb2f3cc4\",\"name\":\"Nathan\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.wild-facts.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/0.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0e126172d6ffd6e322bd2cea79f2ad95?s=96&d=wavatar&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"http:\/\/0.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0e126172d6ffd6e322bd2cea79f2ad95?s=96&d=wavatar&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Nathan\"},\"description\":\"I am a digital nomad who enjoys travelling around the globe while inspiring others to leave their comfort zone and improve their life. I have a passion for self-development and of course everything related to our natural ecosystems.\",\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/www.wild-facts.com\"],\"url\":\"http:\/\/www.wild-facts.com\/author\/wildfac1\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Why Food is Important for Black Bear Survival","description":"Explains the importance of food for the black bear survival as a species. Discusses embryonic diapause and the evolutionary trends for survival of the fittest.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"http:\/\/www.wild-facts.com\/2009\/wild-fact-979-why-goldilocks-shouldnt-have-eaten-the-porridge-black-bears\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Why Food is Important for Black Bear Survival","og_description":"Explains the importance of food for the black bear survival as a species. Discusses embryonic diapause and the evolutionary trends for survival of the fittest.","og_url":"http:\/\/www.wild-facts.com\/2009\/wild-fact-979-why-goldilocks-shouldnt-have-eaten-the-porridge-black-bears\/","og_site_name":"Animal Facts For Kids | Wild Facts","article_published_time":"2009-09-21T07:00:11+00:00","article_modified_time":"2015-01-15T23:34:39+00:00","og_image":[{"width":647,"height":847,"url":"http:\/\/www.wild-facts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/09\/da7cb35381db044bcb92b6e297455317_large.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Nathan","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Nathan","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http:\/\/www.wild-facts.com\/2009\/wild-fact-979-why-goldilocks-shouldnt-have-eaten-the-porridge-black-bears\/","url":"http:\/\/www.wild-facts.com\/2009\/wild-fact-979-why-goldilocks-shouldnt-have-eaten-the-porridge-black-bears\/","name":"Why Food is Important for Black Bear Survival","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.wild-facts.com\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-09-21T07:00:11+00:00","dateModified":"2015-01-15T23:34:39+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.wild-facts.com\/#\/schema\/person\/4c5129f3f0129e9989a2b850bb2f3cc4"},"description":"Explains the importance of food for the black bear survival as a species. Discusses embryonic diapause and the evolutionary trends for survival of the fittest.","inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["http:\/\/www.wild-facts.com\/2009\/wild-fact-979-why-goldilocks-shouldnt-have-eaten-the-porridge-black-bears\/"]}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.wild-facts.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.wild-facts.com\/","name":"Animal Facts For Kids | Wild Facts","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.wild-facts.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.wild-facts.com\/#\/schema\/person\/4c5129f3f0129e9989a2b850bb2f3cc4","name":"Nathan","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.wild-facts.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"http:\/\/0.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0e126172d6ffd6e322bd2cea79f2ad95?s=96&d=wavatar&r=g","contentUrl":"http:\/\/0.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0e126172d6ffd6e322bd2cea79f2ad95?s=96&d=wavatar&r=g","caption":"Nathan"},"description":"I am a digital nomad who enjoys travelling around the globe while inspiring others to leave their comfort zone and improve their life. I have a passion for self-development and of course everything related to our natural ecosystems.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.wild-facts.com"],"url":"http:\/\/www.wild-facts.com\/author\/wildfac1\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.wild-facts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.wild-facts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.wild-facts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.wild-facts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.wild-facts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.wild-facts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.wild-facts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.wild-facts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.wild-facts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.wild-facts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Loafin'](\"http:\/\/wild-facts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/09\/da7cb35381db044bcb92b6e297455317_large-229x300.jpg\" "\\"da7cb35381db044bcb92b6e297455317_large\\"")
<\/a>