February 4, 2000

     Outdoors journal

About 24,000 black bears live in the wilds of northern Minnesota.  Now is the time their cubs are being born.  Young are born in January or early February while their mothers are still in their sleeping dens.  At birth the young, usually two or three in a litter, are only 6-8 inches long and weigh 7-12 ounces, about 1/500th of the weight of the mother.  It has been suggested that because the mother black bear must often nurse her cubs three or four months with no food for herself, the young have to be small.