Throughout bears' range, prime black bear habitat is characterized by relatively inaccessible terrain, thick understory vegetation, and abundant sources of food in the form of shrub or tree-borne soft or hard mast. In the southwest, prime black bear habitat is restricted to vegetated, mountainous areas ranging from 900 to 3,000 m in elevation. Habitats consist mostly of chaparral and pinyon-juniper woodland sites.
Bears occasionally move out of the chaparral into more open sites and feed on prickly pear cactus.
There are at least two distinct, prime habitat types in the Southeast. Black bears in the southern Appalachian Mountains survive in a predominantly oak- hickory and mixed mesophytic forest. In the coastal areas of the southeast, bears inhabit a mixture of flatwoods, bays, and swampy hardwood sites. In the northeast, prime habitat consists of a forest canopy of hardwoods such as beech, maple, and birch, and coniferous species. Swampy habitat areas are mainly white cedar.