The most common bear in Idaho is the Ursus americanus otherwise known as the American black bear. Baby bears are called cubs, female bears are called sows and male bears are called boars . Bears in Idaho People who live in Idaho are lucky to share their forests with a few grizzlies and a lots of black bears. In Idaho, you are as likely to see a black bear that is brown as you are to see a black bear that is black. Black bears that live in the western states are often various shades of brown similar to grizzly bears.
Eastern bears are usually black.
In Idaho, black bear habitat spreads over 30,000 square miles of forest, mostly north of the Snake River Plain. Less than one fourth of bear habitat is on private lands. The rest is managed by a variety of state and federal agencies, including the United States Forest Service which oversees three-fourths of the bear habitat in Idaho. Idaho's forests can support 20,000 - 25,000 bears, but the actual population is probably lower than that. Idaho's black bears are creatures of the forest.