# Black bear forests..



## primal1 (Aug 22, 2003)

I have a client for trees and shrubs, he wants to fill his forest canada zone 3-4 with food providing vegetation for the bears that have been going hungry the past couple of years.
I have searched and come up with Oak, black cherry, choke cherry, Beech, plum, Empetrum.

I'd like to hear more options from those who have bear country forests


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## Nimrod (Jun 8, 2010)

Bears are omnivores. The eat all kinds of vegetable matter and anything from bugs to buffalo for meat. 

My new piece of land was logged some years ago and the raspberrys have taken over. When they are ripe, there are piles of red bear poop all over the place. LOL


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## farmerDale (Jan 8, 2011)

Blueberries, blueberries, blueberries.

Seclusion, diversity, open glades. Bears love dandelions. grass, dead animals, ants, maggots.

Bears have a big enough range that unless this person has a few thousand acres of intact forest, he will have little impact on their health and well being.

Bears LOVE oats, wheat, and other field crops.

IMO the best bear habitat is that with large forest tracts, interspersed with field crops.

DIVERSITY.

But altering a forest to help the bears would take years and years. And again, unless he has LOTS of land, he will have pretty much zero impact anyway. And if the bears are truly going hungry, they will move to food. Does he have documented cases of death by starvation, or has he just seen a few skinny bears???


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## primal1 (Aug 22, 2003)

Yup, diversity is why i am looking into it, raspberries and blueberries are a great addition. I had thought about grasses but i will tell him to get seed.
He's got 650 acres of mountainous forest that he has seen bears in and yes the bears have started entering the small villages. I know the area a little and it is still quite forested so i am not sure if the bears are actually going hungry due to lack of food or over population.. anyhow a client is a client and if he want to buy trees and shrubs to plant it might as well be from me HAHA.
I checked my inventory this morning and I have native hazelnuts, dogwood, and serviceberry to add as small fast producing trees/shrubs.


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## Bearfootfarm (Jul 13, 2006)

> i am not sure if the bears are actually going hungry due to lack of food or over population


What makes you think they are "going hungry" anyway?


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## primal1 (Aug 22, 2003)

Thats what he thinks and what he told me, I guess because they are heading to the villages more often than ever before.. I don't have the details of what is going on in that region so it's impossible for me to say for sure.


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## Molly Mckee (Jul 8, 2006)

Here the bears love huckleberries.


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## primal1 (Aug 22, 2003)

Very nice, i think huckleberries are more common than blueberries further north too


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## Lisa in WA (Oct 11, 2004)

Serviceberries! Do you call them Saskatoon berries up there?


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## farmerDale (Jan 8, 2011)

LisaInN.Idaho said:


> Serviceberries! Do you call them Saskatoon berries up there?


Yes. But they can only reach the lowest ones.


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## bowdonkey (Oct 6, 2007)

It's a rare saskatoon or crabapple tree that gets to any height here due to bears ripping them down to get the fruit.


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

Deer in this area swarm the apple trees that are in the woods and vacant fields I am sure bears would too. 
Bears go into towns and villages now because of lazy home owners putting out easy to get trash with bear eatiable stuff.

 Al


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## Darren (May 10, 2002)

A heavily forested area is probably the last thing you want. As mentioned previously diversity is key. There's a book that discusses animals and the contents of their stomachs as a guide for planting.that can be used to encourage or discourage wildlife. Looking at topo and aerial maps can provide the info you need on selecting appropriate exposures for optimum planing and possibly clearing some areas for food production especially in the margins.

Like others mentioned, no amount of planting is going to replace easy trash pickings that provide a food source year round. Nobody, bears included, is going to scrounge, when a free buffet is available.


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## primal1 (Aug 22, 2003)

Serviceberry is Amelanchiere canadensis and Saskatoonberry is Amelanchiere alnifolia, they are very similar as a large shrub or small tree.
I have some wild apple to.

Is Elderberry an option? i love the fast growing stuff!

I'll talk to the guy today and try to find out some more details, for all i know the forest could have been clear cut/replanted as little as 20-30 years ago which doesn't necessarily mean the right trees were planted. It's also 3-4 hours away so i won't be going to check it out for myself.


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## Lisa in WA (Oct 11, 2004)

farmerDale said:


> Yes. But they can only reach the lowest ones.


They don't seem to have any problems bending the higher branches down around here.


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## farmerDale (Jan 8, 2011)

LisaInN.Idaho said:


> They don't seem to have any problems bending the higher branches down around here.


I suppose in the absence of blueberries, they would do that here too. But they sure prefer blueberries if both are available. 

Saskatoons here are often 12 to 20 feet high, blueberries are a foot high. Bears are lazy. lol


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## Lisa in WA (Oct 11, 2004)

primal1 said:


> Serviceberry is Amelanchiere canadensis and Saskatoonberry is Amelanchiere alnifolia, they are very similar as a large shrub or small tree.
> I have some wild apple to.
> 
> Is Elderberry an option? i love the fast growing stuff!
> ...


The examples you gave are east coast/west coast variations. Here (just south of the British Columbia border), serviceberry and saskatoon are used interchangeably for the same plant. They are also called Juneberries.


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## primal1 (Aug 22, 2003)

Yes i am sure there are quite a few names, I try to stick to using one to keep it simple hehe. A local here started to argue with me because I asked them about Huckleberry and they were insisting it was Hackleberry


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## primal1 (Aug 22, 2003)

I also have a seviceberry in my garden that is fruit bearing and is 4 feet tall and bushy. So even if bears break the trunks it will leaf out lower down and also send up plenty of suckers.


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## jwal10 (Jun 5, 2010)

Bears are just like people, they love junk food and sweets. Look at what works best for bait, DONUTS with maple syrup. We have a terrible time at the lake with bears, they come down out of the mountains in the spring, get a liking for the easy pickings in the trash cans. Most of the good bear food is in the fall in the wild, so they fatten up before hibernating. Bears wake up and are hungry in the spring, not so many "good" things to eat then. Mature forests do have rotten wood, in the spring this brings grubs, worms and larvae under the bark and in rotten wood. Because it is colder in the spring it is hard to "grow" the good stuff....James


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## primal1 (Aug 22, 2003)

Empetrum was the only small shrub i found that will keep it's berries all winter, I am sure there are more that do but still looking


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