Asiatic Black Bear

The Asian black bear, also called the moon bear, is a medium-sized bear native to Asia that is largely adapted to life in trees. It ranges from southeastern Iran, Pakistan and the Himalayas through Southeast Asia, Korea, China and the Russian Far East to the Japanese islands of Honshu and Shikoku. Black-furred with a light brown muzzle and a whitish chest patch, adults measure 70-100 cm (28-39 in) at the shoulder. It is omnivorous, eating insects, nuts, fruits, acorns, honey, carrion and grasses. Often climbing to feed, rest or escape enemies, it breaks branches into nest-like platforms in treetops.

About the Asiatic black bear

The Asiatic black bear is a medium-sized, tree-climbing bear native to forests across southern and eastern Asia, from Iran and the Himalayas to Japan and the Russian Far East. Also called the moon bear for the pale crescent on its chest, it is the closest living relative of the American black bear.

It has black fur, a light brown muzzle and a whitish or cream patch on the chest that is sometimes V-shaped. The ears are bell-shaped, longer in proportion than other bears' ears, and stick out sideways from the head. The tail is short, about 11 cm (4.3 in).

Adults stand 70–100 cm (28–39 in) at the shoulder and measure 120–190 cm (47–75 in) long. Males weigh 60–200 kg (130–440 lb), averaging about 135 kg (298 lb), while females weigh 40–125 kg (88–276 lb), with large ones reaching 140 kg (310 lb). In general build it resembles a brown bear, but it is lighter and smaller, with larger, more mobile lips and nose.

The body is built for climbing. Ursus thibetanus has a powerful upper body and relatively weak hind legs, shorter than those of brown and American black bears; one with broken hind legs can still climb well. Its front claws are 30–45 mm (1.2–1.8 in) long, bigger and more hooked than an American black bear's, and the heel pads on the front feet are larger than in most bears. It is also the most bipedal of all bears and can walk upright for more than 400 m (a quarter mile).

Its senses are sharper than a brown bear's overall, though its eyesight is poor and its hearing is only moderate.

Behavior and diet

Asiatic black bears are mostly diurnal, but near people they switch to being active at night. They are excellent climbers of trees and rocks and climb to feed, rest, sunbathe, escape danger and even hibernate. They are among the largest tree-dwelling mammals. When feeding in a tree, a bear breaks branches and tucks them underneath itself, leaving nest-like platforms in the treetops that it may rest in.

Over most of the range they don't hibernate. In colder northern areas they may, or may simply move downhill, and nearly all pregnant females den up. Dens are hollow trees, caves, holes in the ground, hollow logs or steep sunny slopes, and bears usually sleep from November to March. With plenty of food, a bear may stay within an area of just 1–2 km² (0.4–0.8 sq mi).

They are noisy animals, with grunts, whines, roars, loud warning hisses and screams when fighting. Approaching another bear, they make a "tut tut" sound, and courting bears cluck.

What Asiatic black bears eat

The Asiatic black bear is an omnivore with a broad, opportunistic diet. Plant foods include acorns, pine nuts, hazelnuts, fruits, cherries, grapes, grasses, bark, roots, tubers, mushrooms, seeds and grain, and it also eats insects, beetle larvae, termites, honey, bees, eggs, carrion and garbage. Diet follows the seasons: old acorns and pine nuts in spring, green plants and fruit from mid-May to late June, and tree fruit and pine cones from July to September. In Japan, bears eat mainly acorns year-round.

It is more plant-focused than a brown bear but more carnivorous than an American black bear. It kills hoofed animals fairly regularly, including muntjacs, serow, takin, wild boar, livestock and even adult water buffalo, which it kills by breaking the neck.

Reproduction

In the Russian Far East, mating runs from mid-June to mid-August. Like brown bears, Asiatic black bears have delayed implantation, and gestation lasts 200–240 days. Cubs are born in caves or hollow trees in winter or early spring, weighing about 370 g (13 oz). Litters have one to four cubs, usually two. Cubs grow slowly, nurse for up to two and a half years, and become independent at 24 to 36 months. Females usually have their first litter at three and breed every two to three years.

Predators and rivals

Tigers attack and eat Asiatic black bears, mainly young ones, and bears escape by climbing trees. Brown bears sometimes attack them too. Leopards prey on cubs younger than two, and wolf packs and Eurasian lynxes are potential predators of cubs. Bears over about five years old are usually safe from tigers.

Range and habitat

The Asiatic black bear once ranged as far west as the Iberian Peninsula and the Ural Mountains. Today it lives patchily from southeastern Iran through Afghanistan and Pakistan, along the Himalayan foothills of India and Myanmar, and across mainland Southeast Asia except Malaysia. It also lives in parts of China, Taiwan, North Korea and the southern Russian Far East, with small remnant populations in South Korea and on the Japanese islands of Honshu and Shikoku.

It favors deciduous, mixed and thornbrush forest. In the Himalayas it spends summer at around 3,500 m (11,480 ft), rarely above 3,700 m (12,000 ft), and drops below 1,500 m (4,920 ft) in winter. In Japan it also lives at sea level. Its range overlaps with the sloth bear in India, the sun bear in Southeast Asia and the brown bear in the Russian Far East.

Asiatic black bear vs American black bear

The two black bears are sister species, more closely related to each other than to any other bear, and probably split about 3 million years ago.

For the North American species, see the American black bear.

Conservation status

The Asiatic black bear is listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List, assessed in 2020, and is on CITES Appendix I. Reliable population counts don't exist for most of the range.

The main threats are deforestation and poaching. Bears are killed for their paws, skins and especially gall bladders, whose bile is used in traditional medicine, and cubs are taken live. In parts of China, the bear's range had shrunk to a fifth of its pre-1940s extent by the early 1990s. Logging of hollow trees robs bears of dens, and bears are also killed for raiding crops, orchards and beehives. South Korea is one of two countries where bear bile farming is still legal, with about 1,374 bears held on farms in 2009. In Iran, warming temperatures have been linked to a 30 to 40 percent decline.

There are bright spots. After the bear vanished from South Korea, a reintroduction program begun in 2004 in Jirisan National Park succeeded, with bears now spreading into nearby forests. In Japan, conservation rules and fewer hunters let numbers climb from about 15,000 in 2012 to around 44,000 in 2023.