Do bears den early if there is lots of food?

H

Hollow Point

CGN Regular
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New Brunswick
I haven't seen any fresh bear sign in a month. For where I hunt this is very rare unless there is a lack of food. this year there are still a lot of berries, apples, and green grass. I expected to have some pics on my trail cams at deer baits at least. so far nothing for bears (a few deer mostly after dark and a pile of raccoons). So my question is will the den up early if they have had enough to eat? or is it more likely that there was a different / better food source that drew them to a different area?
 
Hibernating is food resource based. They turn off when the food is no longer accessible. Food elsewhere could have drawn them from your area but if there’s still plenty of food they’re not sleeping.
 
In my area the bears quit showing up on cameras and baits around mid October for the most part; but there’s usually a few exceptions. This year I’m still seeing quite a few bears out in grain fields. It’s like theres not a lot of rhyme or reason to it.
 
Hollow Point said:
I haven't seen any fresh bear sign in a month. For where I hunt this is very rare unless there is a lack of food. this year there are still a lot of berries, apples, and green grass. I expected to have some pics on my trail cams at deer baits at least. so far nothing for bears (a few deer mostly after dark and a pile of raccoons). So my question is will the den up early if they have had enough to eat? or is it more likely that there was a different / better food source that drew them to a different area?
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Yeah, makes sense – maybe the food's just too plentiful elsewhere. Or maybe they're just fat and happy, skipping the bait buffet!
 
Bears are denning here, but on an individual basis the timing of denning fluctuates based on caloric intake. If there is a local food source that keeps them in a calorie positive state they will continue to feed, but movement will largely be limited to between the denning site and the food source. Now and again they will get up and go "walk about" for no particular reason. I have tracked bears through the snow on a random 2 km loop from the den, circling through the hills and back to the den, with no apparent stops for food or any other fathomable reason.
 
Grizzlies are certainly out, some Boars don't hibernate at all. Seen one Black Bear all year and no sign when the Chokecherries were ripe.
 
Sooooo I am on the wet coast. Fat plumpy bears like on my main street in town dropping bombs on the yellow line. We had this year a big bruin (ate 2 rooster before the dog's got at him) mom with 2 cubs, 3 year old, latest as of last week I have seen was the bruin sauntering up the road. Co worker said ahe still sees them every day around the rez. We're a bit different here I don't actually think they hibernate. When I lived in ab yeah they would be thinking about hibernation now. Depending on body fat. Remember they eat themselves all winter so must have fuel.
 
If there is plenty of food, and the weather is still mild, they can still be out. Depends on the local conditions.
Typically, they should have denned up by now, with the boars denning later than the pregnant sows and sows with cubs.

We have had some snow over the past weekend, but I saw tracks of both grizzlies and black bears in the snow and ice on the roads in the mountains yesterday. Looks like the black bear was vacating the valley that had tracks of a grizzly boar on one road, a sow grizzly sow and cub on another road. Guess he didn't want to be their last supper before denning!
 
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