Trip Report by Leader David Cook

Sixteen persons participated in the black bear habitat walk in Lower Seymour Conservation Reserve (LSCR) and Lynn Canyon Park, on August 12, 2018. The field trip was organized jointly by Nature Vancouver and the North Shore Black Bear Society. The route took us through two types of bear feeding habitats. First, a low scrub beneath the Hydro lines in LSCR where bears forage for berries. Second, a coniferous forest in Lynn Canyon Park where bears forage for beetle larvae in rotten logs and snags. We saw bear signs such as scats, cedars that showed territorial claw and bite marks, claw marks where a bear had climbed a tree, a den and excavated logs and snags where bears had been foraging for beetle larvae. The bear scats contained seeds of Himalayan blackberry in one case and pits of domesticated cherry in another.