Bears and Bird Feeders: When to Take Everything Down

The short answer

• The standard agency rule across bear country is simple: no feeders out from roughly April through November, and feeders down immediately at any time of year if a bear is seen or reported nearby.
• A single 20 lb bag of black oil sunflower carries roughly 40,000 kcal of edible kernel, which is why a feeder outranks an afternoon of natural foraging and why a bear that finds one comes back.
• No practical backyard hanging height works. A black bear stands over 6 ft, reaches higher, climbs trees and pushes over poles.
• A bear that gets a food reward at houses becomes a bear that approaches houses, and that sequence usually ends with the bear being destroyed. In many jurisdictions leaving attractants out after a warning is also an offense.
• Suet and hummingbird nectar are the highest-value attractants you can hang, so they come down first and go back last.

If a bear has been in your yard, the feeder comes down today. Not a bigger baffle, not a higher hook, not a metal feeder. Down, and the spilled seed raked up with it. Every other page in this cluster is about protecting your seed. This one is about not getting a bear killed.

The rule agencies actually give#

Across the United States and Canada, wildlife agencies converge on the same guidance in bear country:

• No feeders out from roughly April 1 until bears den, around December 1. Exact dates shift with latitude and elevation. In the southern Appalachians the window opens earlier; at elevation in the Rockies or in northern Canada it opens later and closes sooner.
• Feeders down immediately, any time of year, if a bear is seen or reported nearby. Warm winters and mild coastal areas mean some bears never den properly.
• Clean up what is already on the ground. A raked-clean drop zone matters as much as the feeder itself, because the spilled seed is what holds a bear on the site after you remove the hardware.
• Store seed indoors in a sealed container. Not in a shed, not in a garage with a soft door, not on a screened porch. The seed storage rules that keep seed fresh happen to be the same rules that keep it from smelling.

That leaves roughly December to March as the feeding season in bear country, which lines up neatly with the months birds most benefit from feeders anyway. Plan the year around it with the bird feeding calendar and get your value out of winter feeding.

Where bear country is, and where it is growing#

Black bears occupy far more of the continent than most people assume, and the range has been expanding for decades as forest cover returns. Established populations run through the Appalachians and New England, the Great Lakes states and Ontario, the Ozarks, the Rockies, the Pacific Northwest, coastal California, most of Canada and Alaska. The expansion edge is what catches people out: bears are now regularly recorded in parts of the Midwest, the mid-Atlantic and the southern plains where nobody living there has had to think about feeders before.

Grizzly and brown bears occupy a narrower range: northwestern Montana, the Greater Yellowstone area, parts of Idaho and Washington, western Canada and Alaska. Where they occur, the guidance is stricter and non-negotiable, and attractant storage is often written into local ordinance.

If you do not know your status, assume you are in bear country if any of these is true: you have seen a bear sighting reported within 10 miles in the last two years, your municipality has a bear-resistant garbage ordinance, or your neighbors talk about garbage cans being tipped in April. The first bear in a neighborhood is always a surprise to somebody.

Why a feeder is worth so much to a bear#

Bird food is dense, dry and concentrated in a way that almost nothing in a spring forest is.

Prices are 2026 United States big-bag benchmarks used as defaults in our seed cost calculator. Swap in your own and the ranking can change; the edible fraction and energy columns will not.

Run the numbers on a single fill. A 20 lb bag of black oil sunflower is about 9,070 g of seed. Roughly 75% of that is edible kernel, and the kernel runs about 584 kcal per 100 g, so the bag holds close to 40,000 kcal of usable energy sitting in one place at nose height. A single 11 oz suet cake is about 2,300 kcal of nearly pure fat.

Compare that to a bear in April working over grass shoots and last year's acorns and the behavior explains itself. Nothing about a bear finding your feeder is unusual or aggressive. It is arithmetic.

Two foods deserve special attention because they are the most concentrated things you can hang:

• Suet is fat by definition, and it smells. A suet cage is easy for a bear to strip and the residue keeps drawing attention afterwards. In bear country, suet is the first thing down and the last thing back.
• Nectar is sugar water, carries strongly on a warm evening, and bears will pull a feeder down to drink it. If you are running hummingbird feeders anywhere near the bear season, treat them as nightly-in items and follow the timing in hummingbird feeder timing.

Hanging heights that do not work#

People reach for height because it works on raccoons. It does not transfer.

The only structural approach wildlife agencies do endorse is a properly designed and maintained electric fence around the feeding area. That is a real project with real maintenance, it has to exist before the first visit rather than after it, and in most yards taking the feeders down for eight months is the rational choice.

What a damaged feeder means#

Two consequences follow from a bear taking a feeder, and neither is about the feeder.

For the bear. It has now been rewarded at a house. Food-conditioned bears are relocated at best and destroyed at worst, and relocation frequently fails because the animal returns or repeats the behavior elsewhere. The bear did not do anything wrong. The feeder did.

For you. A growing number of states, provinces and municipalities have ordinances covering attractants. Intentionally feeding bears is widely prohibited, and in many places leaving bird feeders, garbage or pet food accessible after a warning is treated as an offense with a fine attached. Insurance and liability questions follow if a neighbor is involved.

Report the visit to your state or provincial wildlife agency rather than keeping it quiet. Their sighting data is what triggers area-wide advisories, and an early advisory is often what keeps a bear from becoming a problem bear.

Feeding birds in bear country anyway#

You are not out of options between April and December, you just stop hanging concentrated food.

• Plant for them instead. Berry shrubs, seed-bearing perennials and a layered shrub edge feed more birds through the summer than a feeder does. See native plants and cover.
• Run water, not seed. A clean bird bath draws more species in a dry summer than a seed feeder, and it attracts nothing that interests a bear. Details in bird baths and water.
• If you must hang nectar, bring it in every night without exception, hang it away from the house, and mix it correctly at four parts water to one part plain white sugar with no dye, as in the nectar recipe.
• Go hard in winter. December to March in bear country is a genuine feeding season, and it is the period when feeders matter most to birds.

Finding your own agency's rule#

Local guidance beats anything on this page. Search for your state's department of natural resources, fish and wildlife, or fish and game, plus the word "bear", and look for a "living with bears", "bear aware" or "bear-wise" page. In Canada, search your provincial or territorial ministry of environment or natural resources. What you are looking for is three specific things:

1. The dates they give for removing feeders in your county or region.
2. The number to call to report a sighting or a conflict.
3. Whether your municipality has an attractant ordinance with penalties attached.

Write the reporting number on the inside of the cupboard where the seed lives. If you are also dealing with the night shift on the same pole, the good news is that the dusk routine you build for raccoons is most of the work already done.

Frequently asked questions#

When should I take bird feeders down for bears?

The rule most North American wildlife agencies give is to have feeders down from about the start of April until bears have denned in late November or December, and to take them down immediately at any point if a bear is seen in the area. Spring is the highest-risk window: bears come out of the den with nothing natural available, and a feeder is the most concentrated food source in a suburban yard. Check your own state, provincial or territorial agency, because the exact dates shift with latitude and elevation.

Is there such a thing as a bear-proof bird feeder?

Not in any useful sense. A bear that wants a feeder will take the pole, the bracket or the tree limb with it. Metal cages and locking hoppers slow a raccoon, not a 200 lb animal with claws and leverage. The only measures agencies endorse are removing the feeder, or putting the feeding station inside a properly built and maintained electric fence, which is more work than most people expect and needs to be right before the bear arrives, not after.

A bear destroyed my feeder. What happens now?

The bear got a food reward, which means it has learned that houses pay. It will return, usually within a night or two, and it will check neighboring yards on the same route. Take every feeder down immediately, clear the spilled seed, secure garbage, and report the visit to your state or provincial wildlife agency. Many jurisdictions treat leaving attractants out after a warning as an offense, and repeat visits to homes are how a bear ends up being killed.

Can I hang the feeder higher instead?

No height available in a backyard works. Backcountry food-hang guidance is roughly 10 to 12 ft up and well out from any trunk on a line between two trees, and even that is intended for a sealed bag in a forest, not a seed feeder next to a house. In a yard, a bear climbs the tree, pushes over the pole, or pulls the bracket off the wall. Raising a feeder from 6 ft to 10 ft changes nothing except how far it falls.

Are hummingbird feeders a problem for bears too?

Yes, and people routinely forget them. Nectar is sugar water, it is easy to smell, and bears drink it and crush the feeder to do so. In bear country, hummingbird feeders follow the same schedule as seed feeders: down for the active season, or brought in every single night and rehung at dawn if you are inside the season and choose to accept the risk anyway.

Sources and further reading

1. Bears U.S. National Park Service Bear behavior, food conditioning and human-bear conflict
2. BearWise BearWise, a program of state wildlife agencies State agency guidance on removing attractants including bird feeders
3. Bird Feeding and Care National Audubon Society General feeding guidance and regional considerations
4. Feeding Birds Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Project FeederWatch Foods, feeder types and seasonal feeding practice