Black bears are large, elusive mammals. Their heads are small relative to their massive bodies. Black bears walk on four powerful limbs, but can also appear quite human-like when they stand on their hind legs. Smaller than their cousins, the black bear is an agile climber, even in adulthood. Black bears are alert creatures, with a sense of smell more highly developed than other large animals, with exceptional hearing but apparently only average eyesight. Black bears can run up to 35 miles per hour, climb trees, and are powerful swimmers.

The black bear's diet is similar to that of the brown bears, omnivores who will eat almost anything, but it is more markedly herbivorous. An insatiable appetite helps the black bear achieve its size, which, for an adult female, ranges in weight from 150-250 pounds and from 200 to more than 600 pounds for an adult male. The black bear's first mate at an age of 3.5 to 4.5 years, usually during June and July. The gestation period lasts about 220 days and the young are born in January or February in the mother's winter den. At birth the cubs are blind and deaf with a sparsely developed coat, weighing only .5 lbs to one pound. They begin to grow rapidly on a diet composed exclusively of sow's milk, which is much higher in solids, total fats and proteins that cows milk. Life is not easy for a sow with cubs as they must always be on the lookout for aggressive males and constantly concerned for their cub's safety. Although they need nutrition more desperately than the already fatter males, there is rarely an equal opportunity for the smaller females to take advantage of a good food resource.

The presence of a black bear may be intimidating to some people, but the black bear has a natural fear of humans and will most likely run away from an encounter. The black bear is quite shy and is rarely seen, even with other bears, except as a family unit of mother and offspring.

Brown bears (Ursus arctos) weigh between 300 and 860 pounds and can be up to 9'6" in total body length. They are usually dark brown in color but can vary from a light cream color to almost black. The long, outer guard hairs of the grizzly are often tipped with white, silver, or cream giving the bear the grizzled appearance its name denotes. Coat colour is not a good characteristic for distinguishing between black and grizzly bears. Other external physical features are much more useful. The grizzly has a large hump over the front shoulders. This hump is a muscle mass used to power forelimbs in digging. Grizzlies have a large rounded head with a concave facial profile. The small rounded, furred ears are set well apart on the head in contrast to its narrowly set eyes. The black bear, on the other hand, has no shoulder hump and has a long, straight facial profile and large ears.