Bears - Sounds Wild
Fall bears

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Fall bears

As fall comes to Alaska, bears across the North country prepare to hibernate. Bears that can still find food into October, like late season salmon or groundcone roots, may continue feeding for a few weeks, but by November most Alaska bears have denned up. Black bears in southeast Alaska typically den up in hollow trees and in the spaces under the root wads of big standing trees. Bears make multiple trips into the den carrying mouthfuls of vegetation, boughs and branches, to make a bed to insulate them from the cold ground. A mother black bear with cubs of the year will hibernate with her cubs, and a pregnant female will have her cubs mid-winter, while she hibernates. The tiny baby bears will nurse during the winter and emerge in the spring with their mother.

Brown bears on Admiralty Island tend to move up into the alpine and den up in rock cavities and crevices, places that will stay cold and dry all winter. A bear does not want a mid-winter thaw or rain to flood its den.

Come spring, bears will gradually emerge from their dens. In Southeast, that tends to be early April for male bears, and mid-to-late April for sows with cubs. Bears lose about one-third of their body weight during hibernation, fat reserves that supported them throughout their long winter fast.