The American black bear (Ursus americanus), or simply Black Bear, is a medium-sized bear endemic to North America. It is the continent's smallest and most widely distributed bear species. American black bears are omnivores, with their diets varying greatly depending on season and location. They typically live in largely forested areas, but will leave forests in search of food, and are sometimes attracted to human communities due to the immediate availability of food. Despite the name, some subspecies can be brown or even blond in coloration.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) lists the American black bear as a least-concern species, due to its widespread distribution and a large population estimated to be twice that of all other bear species combined. Along with the Brown Bear (Ursus arctos), it is one of only two modern bear species not considered by the IUCN to be globally threatened with extinction.

Historically, American black bears occupied the majority of North America's forested regions. Today, they are primarily limited to sparsely settled, forested areas. American black bears currently inhabit much of their original Canadian range, though they seldom occur in the southern farmlands of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba; they have been extirpated on Prince Edward Island since 1937. The total Canadian black bear population is between 396,000 and 476,000, based on surveys taken in the mid-1990s in seven Canadian provinces, though this estimate excludes American black bear populations in New Brunswick, the Northwest Territories, Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan. All provinces indicated stable populations of American black bears over the last decade.

The current range of American black bears in the United States is constant throughout most of the Northeast and within the Appalachian Mountains almost continuously from Maine to northern Georgia, the northern Midwest, the Rocky Mountain region, the West Coast and Alaska. However, it becomes increasingly fragmented or absent in other regions. Despite this, American black bears in those areas seem to have expanded their range during the last decade, such as with recent sightings in Ohio, Illinois, and southern Indiana. Sightings of itinerant American black bears in the Driftless Area of southeastern Minnesota, northeastern Iowa, and southwestern Wisconsin are common. In the spring of 2019, biologists with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources confirmed documentation of an American black bear living year-round in woodlands near the town of Decorah in northeastern Iowa, believed to be the first instance of a resident black bear in Iowa since the 1880s.

Surveys taken from 35 states in the early 1990s indicate that American black bears are either stable or increasing, except in Idaho and New Mexico. The overall population of American black bears in the United States has been estimated to range between 339,000 and 465,000,[36] though this excludes populations from Alaska, Idaho, South Dakota, Texas and Wyoming, whose population sizes are unknown. In the state of California, there are an estimated 25,000-35,000 American black bears, making it the largest population of the species in the contiguous United States.

As of 1993, known Mexican black bear populations existed in four areas, though knowledge on the distribution of populations outside those areas has not been updated since 1959. Mexico is the only country where the American black bear is classified as "endangered".

There have been several sightings quite far away from where the American black bear is normally found, such as western Nebraska.

There are about 1,500 bears in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The population density is about two per square mile. They inhabit all elevations in the park.

Throughout their range, habitats preferred by American black bears have a few shared characteristics. They are often found in areas with relatively inaccessible terrain, thick understory vegetation and large quantities of edible material (especially masts). The adaptation to woodlands and thick vegetation in this species may have originally been due to the American black bear having evolved alongside larger, more aggressive bear species, such as the extinct giant short-faced bear and the still-living grizzly bear, that monopolized more open habitats and the historic presence of larger predators, such as Smilodon and the American lion, that could have preyed on American black bears. Although found in the largest numbers in wild, undisturbed areas and rural regions, American black bears can adapt to surviving in some numbers in peri-urban regions, as long as they contain easily accessible foods and some vegetative coverage.

In most of the contiguous United States, American black bears today are usually found in heavily vegetated mountainous areas, from 400 to 3,000 m (1,300 to 9,800 ft) in elevation. For American black bears living in the American Southwest and Mexico, habitat usually consists of stands of chaparral and pinyon juniper woods. In this region, bears occasionally move to more open areas to feed on prickly pear cactus. At least two distinct, prime habitat types are inhabited in the Southeastern United States. American black bears in the southern Appalachian Mountains survive in predominantly oak-hickory and mixed mesophytic forests. In the coastal areas of the Southeast (such as Florida, the Carolinas and Louisiana), bears inhabit a mixture of flatwoods, bays and swampy hardwood sites.

In the northeastern part of the range (the United States and Canada), prime habitat consists of a forest canopy of hardwoods such as beech, maple, birch and coniferous species. Corn crops and oak-hickory mast are also common sources of food in some sections of the Northeast; small, thick swampy areas provide excellent refuge cover largely in stands of white cedar. Along the Pacific coast, redwood, Sitka spruce and hemlocks predominate as overstory cover. Within these northern forest types are early successional areas important for American black bears, such as fields of brush, wet and dry meadows, high tidelands, riparian areas and a variety of mast-producing hardwood species. The spruce-fir forest dominates much of the range of the American black bear in the Rockies. Important non-forested areas here are wet meadows, riparian areas, avalanche chutes, roadsides, burns, sidehill parks and subalpine ridgetops.

In areas where human development is relatively low, such as stretches of Canada and Alaska, American black bears tend to be found more regularly in lowland regions. In parts of northeastern Canada, especially Labrador, American black bears have adapted exclusively to semi-open areas that are more typical habitat in North America for brown bears (likely due to the absence there of brown and polar bears, as well as other large carnivore species.

The below galleries highlight the various subspecies of Ursus americanus I have documented in the field:

Cinnamon Bear (Ursus americanus cinnamomum) - a debatable subspecies but still generally accepted as such. I’ve seen several over the years in Glacier National Park as well as Yosemite National Park in California. All but the last six of these images are from Yosemite.

American Black Bear (Ursus americanus americanus) - Yellowstone National Park

Kermode Black Bear (Ursus americanus kermodei) - all from Knight Inlet British Columbia. This is the same subspecies as the “Spirit Bear” although the leucistic form is rarer than the melanistic form seen this gallery.

 Olympic Black Bear (Ursus americanus altifrontalis) - Seen often on the Olympic Peninsula, mostly in Olympic National Park, Washington

New Mexico Black Bear (Ursus americanus amblyceps) - seen in the Chiricahua Mountains in Southeastern Arizona in the mid ‘90’s. (scanned slides)