March 12, 2026, 5:04 a.m. ET
ASHEVILLE – Today’s burning question is about when people can expect bears to be out of their dens this spring and how you can prepare. Email the newsroom at news@citizen-times.com and your question could appear in an upcoming column.
Question: Are bears out of hibernation because of the hot weather? When are bears most active in Asheville?
Answer: Though black bears don’t “truly hibernate,” they do go through “torpor,” becoming much less active during colder months when food is scarce. Their metabolism “tanks” and they tend to den up by mid-December, said Ashley Hobbs, special projects biologist for the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission.
But as weather warms and, importantly, spring brings new roots, shoots and insects, Asheville residents are noticing bears back in their neighborhoods. Hobbs said this is typical timing for the city’s bears. It’s a good rule to start preparing for their return by March 1.
Food availability and consistent warm temperatures dictate when bears emerge from their dens.
“We can always kind of plan for bears to be really active around St. Patrick’s Day,” she said.
Single bears and those that have yearlings — meaning cubs born in the January before last — are starting to emerge now. Bears with new cubs tend to appear closer to Easter.
The last few weeks have brought hotter weather than normal, with a gradual warm-up in late February and above normal temperatures for all of March, including some record-breaking days. Meteorologist Andrew Kimball, with the National Weather Service, said cooler weather is incoming, with temperatures forecast to start dropping the night of March 11. The daytime temperature was upward of 80 degrees.
Despite warmer weather, “everything seems to be pretty on track,” Hobbs said. But if Asheville gets more cold weather, the bears’ metabolism might respond, prompting them to bed down again for a little bit.
“Their metabolisms kind of do a slow warm-up overtime, it’s not like they come out of their den just raring to go. They’re still a little lethargic, a little sleepy as they’re moving around on the landscape,” she said, so it can be “temperature dependent.”
Either way, now is the time to prepare for “bear season,” Hobbs said. That means securing trash, taking down bird feeders and checking on backyard animals, like chickens or goats.
“Anything that we do to coexist, now is the time to really take note of what is going on around your home, around your community, even, and make sure everything is buttoned up so that we can all start off on the right foot and we don’t have bears accessing human-provided food,” Hobbs said.
She encouraged people to be proactive using the BearWise basics:
- Never feed or approach bears.
- Secure food, garbage and recycling.
- Remove bird feeders when bears are active.
- Never leave pet food outdoors.
- Clean and store grills and smokers.
- Alert neighbors to bear activity.
Find more bear safety tips at https://bearwise.org/.
Reach the N.C. Wildlife helpline at 866-318-2401 or by emailing hwi@ncwildlife.gov.
How were bears impacted by Helene?
Hobbs said while some people say their neighborhood bears have been “rerouted” since Tropical Storm Helene, maybe not taking the same path they used to before the storm, in terms of bear population or density, “overall, I think there was minimal impacts.”
For bears, things are “back to status quo.”
How many bears are there in Western North Carolina?
The N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission is in the process of updating its latest population counts, but estimates there are about 9,000 bears in the “mountain bear management unit,” or western part of the state, and 20,000 statewide.
The population is still growing in the mountain region anywhere from 3%-5% annually, though the growth rate is trending down, which is a good thing as they hope to stabilize the population.
Sarah Honosky is the city government reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA TODAY Network. News Tips? Email shonosky@citizentimes.com.
