Cold Weather Bears

[MThound]

It is fairly unusual to ever come across a bear track in western MT in the dead of winter. In fact you would never expect to see a black bear out and about wandering out of his den trudging through the snow. I have seen grizzly tracks in the snow up until the latter part of December, but how often do you guys come across black bear tracks while out cat hunting? I have seen bears wandering about in Jan and Feb about 5 or 6 times now over the years. They were always during a really cold snap..10 to 20 below zero. The first time I seen fresh bear tracks while cat hunting it was close to 15 below! I thought it was crazy a black bear would be out when it was that cold. Yet I have seen the same thing a few more times now. Just curious if anyone else has seen this.

[Kevin D]

Not every bear crawls into a hole or brush pile to den...occaisionally some will just curl up at the base of a tree to hibernate. I suspect these are the bear you see moving around during a cold snap in midwinter, either trying to stay warm, or more likely looking for a better place to sleep. A biologist buddy had a GPS collared sow that spent all of last winter above ground in a nest she dug out at the base of a tree....she even had new cubs with her too. She was alert enough in late February to stick her head up above the snow at woof at my buddy when he approached to change batteries in her collar.