Yes. New Hampshire Fish and Game estimates roughly 4,800 to 5,000 black bears in the state, and the White Mountain National Forest around Lincoln is the heart of their range. There are no grizzlies in the East; the black bear is the only bear here, and it is a shy, mostly vegetarian animal that spends its year eating plants, berries, nuts and insects and avoiding people. Hikers see them now and then, usually as a black shape hurrying off the trail. Attacks on people in New Hampshire are so rare that each one makes the news.
The bears that cause trouble are the ones that have learned people mean food: at campgrounds, at bird feeders on the edge of the woods, at trailhead cars with a cooler in the back seat. The rules of bear country here are almost entirely about food, and they are simple. Below: how often you will see one, what to do with your lunch, what to do if you meet a bear, and the seasons when bears are most active.
How often hikers see bears
Regular hikers in the White Mountains see a bear every few years, almost always briefly: a sow and cubs crossing a logging road at dawn, a young bear in a blueberry patch on an open ledge in August, a black shape on the far side of a beaver meadow. Bears hear and smell people long before people see them and nearly always leave. The exceptions are around food: the campgrounds along the Kancamagus, the backcountry tent sites, and the edges of town where bird feeders and trash bins teach bears to stay. Fish and Game asks residents to take feeders down from April to December for exactly that reason.
Food: the whole rulebook
Keep your food in your pack and your pack with you. Do not leave a lunch on a summit rock while you take pictures, do not leave a cooler visible in a trailhead car, and never feed a bear or leave scraps behind; a fed bear becomes a problem bear and a problem bear is eventually shot. At campgrounds use the bear boxes or lock food in the car trunk. In the backcountry, hang food or use a canister as the tent-site caretaker directs. The lodge is in town, with trash in closed bins, and bears are an occasional April visitor to the neighborhood's bird feeders, nothing more.
If you meet a bear
Stop. Do not run, which can trigger a chase, and do not climb a tree, which a bear does better. Speak in a calm, normal voice so it knows you are human, make yourself look large, and back away slowly, giving it room and a clear exit; if there are cubs, give the mother a very wide berth and never get between them. A black bear that stands on its hind legs is trying to see and smell you, not threatening you; one that huffs, swats the ground or snaps its jaws is telling you to leave, and you should. In the extremely rare case of a black bear that follows or approaches deliberately, get loud and aggressive, throw things and fight back if it comes to that. Do not play dead with a black bear; that advice is for grizzlies, which are two thousand miles away.
When bears are most active
Bears leave their dens in April hungry, and spring is when they raid feeders and campsites in town. In July and August they are in the berry patches on the open ledges, which is where hikers most often meet them, on trails like Black Mountain in Benton. In September and October they feed hard on beechnuts and acorns before denning in November, and they are more visible along the Kancamagus at dusk. In winter they are asleep. Dawn and dusk are the active hours in every season.
The animal to worry about instead
The moose is heavier and less predictable than a bear and deserves more caution from a hiker, especially a cow with a calf in early summer or a bull in the fall rut, and after dark it is the animal to watch for on the highway. And the blacklegged tick, which carries Lyme disease to a state with one of the highest rates in the nation, hurts more people every year than every bear and moose combined. Our wildlife guide covers all three.
From the lodge
Bears wander through the neighborhood most Aprils after someone's bird feeder, and that is the extent of it in town. On the trails from here, the berry ledges of Black Mountain, the Kancamagus campgrounds and the backcountry tent sites are where our guests have met them, always briefly. Pack your lunch inside the pack, and enjoy the sighting if you get one.
Useful links
- NH Fish and Game: black bears in New Hampshire
Population figures, the bird-feeder rule and the department's advice on encounters. - NH Fish and Game: bears, frequently asked questions
What to do if you meet one, and what not to do. - Our wildlife guide
Bears, moose, falcons, loons and the ticks that matter more. - Our post on where to see moose
The animal to be careful of, and where to look for it.
Sources & official info: wildlife.nh.gov · wildlife.nh.gov · wildlife.nh.gov
— Launchpoint Lodge, From the lodge
