Image ID number
#

Title
American Black Bears (Mother and Cub)

Description
A female American Black Bear (Ursus americanus) and one of her two cubs stand under a tree near a home in a small town in the Blue Ridge Mountains. The noise of a garage door had awoken the bears from a mid-day nap.

The bears live in and around a residential community that had recently cleared several acres of trees to make room for more human homes—destryong the forest where the mother bear and her ancestors originally lived and foraged, and forcing them into more stressful encounters with humans.

This situation is just one example of the many ways that human activity disrupts and threatens bears' interests and lives. Human population growth has led to increased development and destruction of bears' natural habitat. Highway deaths are very common. An over-reliance on human food (and the lack of enforcement of bear-feeding regulations) results in "nuisance" bears who state wildlife agency officials often put to death. Bears also are terrorized and killed by trophy hunters—with the encouragement of wildlife agencies. (Agency officials are hunters themselves and, in a clear but shamefully-overlooked conflict of interest, write the laws that benefit their so-called "sport.")

Location and Date

Black Mountain, North Carolina, USA
11/6/22 (Note: pre-2000 dates are approximate)

Credit
Mark Swanson / Swanson Media

Camera/Source
Nikon D500 DSLR

Lens
AF-S Nikkor 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6G ED VR

Model/property releases available?
Not applicable/Not applicable

Keywords
American Black Bear (Ursus americanus), Bears (Family Ursidae), Carnivores (Order Carnivora), Class Mammalia (Mammals), Kingdom Animalia (Animals)