Bear poop, also known as scat, varies widely in appearance depending on the bear's diet and the season.

Appearance and Characteristics of Bear Poop

• Shape and Size : Bear scat is typically large and tubular, resembling human feces but bigger, usually 5 to 12 inches long and 1.5 to 2.5 inches in diameter for black bears. Brown and grizzly bear scat tends to be wider, about 2 to 4 inches in diameter. The shape can be tubular with blunt ends and a slight taper, or it may appear as loose piles when bears consume a lot of fruit

• Color : The color changes with diet and season. In spring, when bears eat grasses and insects, their poop is often green and tubular with visible grass. In late summer and fall, when their diet shifts to berries and fruit, the scat becomes looser and darker, often black or brown, with visible seeds and pieces of fruit like apples

• Texture and Contents : The texture can range from solid and tubular to loose and ploppy. Bear scat often contains undigested materials such as seeds, berry skins, apple peels, insect parts, fur, and bones. Vegetation-heavy diets produce more solid, greenish scat, while fruit-heavy diets produce looser, wetter piles

• Smell : The odor varies with diet, often smelling fermented or foul if the bear has eaten meat, or fruity if berries dominate the diet

How to Distinguish Bear Poop from Other Animals

• Bear scat is generally larger and less uniform than that of other animals like coyotes, raccoons, mountain lions, or bobcats.
• Coyote scat is tubular but looks like twisted rope and is smaller.
• Bobcat and mountain lion scat is segmented and dense.
• Bear scat is often found along trails or at the base of trees or plants

In summary, bear poop is large, tubular or loose depending on diet, changes color seasonally, and often contains visible plant or animal matter reflecting their omnivorous diet. It is distinctively bigger and messier than scat from most other wildlife