After the hibernation, Asian black bear (Ursus thibetanus) has to recover physical strength effectively. Thus, spring foraging strategy is very important for bears. We hypothesized that spring food selection of bears related to nutrition components of each food items.

We tried to make the direct observation of bears to identify their food items and their foraging period. We collected leaves of major trees regardless of bears’ feeding from May to July. Then we analyzed nutritional components(crude protein:CP, and neutral detergent fiber:NDF)of above food items.

Bears mostly ate leaves of tree in May. Nutritional analysis revealed that the leaves eaten by bears had a higher CP and, lower NDF than uneaten leaves. However, those leaves were decreased CP and increased NDF from May to July gradually. Bears selected these leaves in May when they had higher CP and lower NDF.

In spring, we suppose that bears have to eat low NDF food items due to low digestive ability. In addition, bears may select high CP food items to build muscle and bone tissue effectively.