Missouri Gave Tips on How to Know You’re Dealing with Bear Poop

I now know much more about bear poop than I ever thought I would. The state of Missouri wants it that way and there are great practical reasons why this is so.

This topic came up when the Missouri Department of Conservation shared a picture of poop (they really did) on their Facebook page last weekend. They called it "Scaterday". They said they would reveal the animal responsible for the poop on Monday and they did. It looked kind of like this.

That's black bear poop and it's important to be able to identify it since Missouri now has more black bears than ever before in the state. Here's their somewhat humorous response to guesses on their post about what animal dropped a load.

One thing to note is the fact that as they mentioned, color and smell can change drastically depending on what the Missouri black bear that's nearby has eaten. Vegetation and berries are common and I've heard many say that bear poop can smell sweet, believe it or not.

While most black bears will avoid human contact, it's important to be bear aware so you can identify when one of these predators is nearby. The one thing you don't want is to accidentally surprise one of these animals. That rarely ends well for the bear or the human.