Bear Behaviour

Understanding bear behaviour is essential in creating safe environments for both bears and people. More often than not, bear behaviour is misinterpreted, from what it means when a bear stands on its hind legs to what vocalizations indicate. The more you can learn about bears and how they behave—and how to react appropriately—the less likely it is you’ll have a negative encounter with a bear.

Behaviour Basics

When healthy and not provoked, bears tend to want to keep to themselves. Unless they are forced to be around humans to be near a food source, they usually choose to avoid us.

Bears, like humans and other animals, have a “critical space”—an area around them that they may defend. If a person has entered a bear’s critical space or they surprised a bear, they have forced the bear to act—either to run away or be aggressive. The size of the critical space is different for every bear and every situation. Bears are intense defenders of their young and food sources like carcasses, and if challenged for these things (i.e. if someone enters their critical space), they may become aggressive.

Bears are very curious and will inspect odours, noises, and objects to determine if they are edible or whether they should investigate further. Standing up on its hind legs allows a bear to get more information from its senses of smell, sight, and hearing. It is a sign of curiosity, not aggression. 

Bears are usually active during dawn and dusk, but they may be seen any time of day or night. Bears in many places of high human use have become nocturnal in order to avoid people, while others have become habituated to people in order to take advantage of a plentiful buffet of improperly stored attractants.

Bears are not territorial. Being territorial means keeping other members of your species away from a given area. Wolves and primates are territorial—bears are not. Bears, like people, share home ranges. This mutual use of land and resources is a basis for bear social behaviour. Bears are often described as asocial, which may be the case in comparison to wolves, chimps, or lions. While bears do not live in extended family groups or join in hunts, they can co-exist in close proximity to each other and even form alliances. Some adult bears have been known to mentor younger unrelated bears; young unrelated subadults may hang around in pairs or small groups. The bears of a region are usually familiar with one another, and meetings can consist of complex social exchanges.

Bears habituate, or become accustomed, to people just like they do other bears. Because plentiful food resources can be localized—salmon in a stream or berries on a mountainside—bears have evolved to tolerate each other at close distances. This behaviour can be transferred to becoming comfortable around humans if a known food source is nearby.

Bears live in a dominance hierarchy based on age, size and temperament. Mature males are at the top of the hierarchy, and sub-adults and cubs at the bottom. Bears establish and maintain their social position and place in the hierarchy by posturing or acting aggressively. Single females and subadults are almost always submissive to mature males but have a loose hierarchy within their own group. An exception to this is if a female has young, she may work to chase off an aggressive male who wants to kill the cub(s) in order to put the female back in estrus and mate.