What Happened To Our Pumpkin?

BEARS’ FALL EAT-A-THON: WHAT’S ON THE MENU AT YOUR HOUSE?

In the fall, bears are hard at work searching for plenty of food so  they can fatten up for the winter ahead. The hunt for food starts in late summer as berries and fruits ripen and shifts into high gear when calorie-packed nuts and seeds (soft and hard mast) are available. By fall bears are foraging up to 20 hours a day in a race against the clock. This annual power-eating marathon is called hyperphagia.

During hyperphagia, bears need to eat ten times the calories they normally consume – that’s at least 20,000 calories a day. Their goal: put on as much weight and insulating fat as possible before turning in for the winter. Even bears that live in warmer climates and den up later or sometimes not at all still go into hyperphagia in the fall.

A pound of acorns has about 2,100 calories; a pound of blueberries, just 256 calories. It takes many hours of foraging each day for bears to find 20,000 calories’ worth of nuts and berries. But just one bird feeder full of black oil sunflower seed or one garbage container overflowing with leftovers can reward a bear with a day’s worth of calories for less than an hour’s work. No wonder human-provided foods can be even more tempting as winter closes in.