WOOSTER — While Ohio had a record number of confirmed black bear sightings in 2025, Wayne County is on the low end of numbers.
In fact, according to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, only 10 black bears have been confirmed in the county since 1993, with three of them coming in 2025.
In 2025, Ohio had 537 reported bear sightings in 69 counties, according to the Ohio Black Bear Monitoring Report issued in May 2026 by the ODNR Division of Wildlife. That’s the highest on record for the state, and up from 370 sightings in 55 counties in 2024.
According to the data, there were 28 sightings from 1993 to 2025, but only 10 were confirmed.
Other neighboring counties from 1993 to 2025 include:
Medina: 3
Ashland: 1
Summit: 29
Holmes: 1
Stark: 22
The county with the highest confirmed sightings is Ashtabula with 410.
Where are black bears located in Ohio?
Many bears wandering Ohio are transient males who don’t stay long, according to the ODNR Division of Wildlife. However, the agency has “consistent evidence” that female black bears call the northeast corner of the state home. Photographs confirm a black bear with cubs in Ashtabula County in 2016, and again each year from 2018 to 2025. Females with cubs also have been recorded for the past three years in Geauga County. That means they have settled in.
“Adult female bears show strong home range fidelity, meaning once they establish a range, they tend to stay there,” the Division of Wildlife writes in its May 6 Facebook post.
And the male bears who usually don’t stick around will stay in a range if a female is present, according to the black bear report for 2025. Monitoring the presence of reproducing female bears determines where resident bears are most likely located in the state.
Massive bear
This month, Ohio wildlife officials collared a male black bear that tipped the scales at nearly 600 pounds, almost twice the average weight, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources posted to Facebook on June 11. ODNR Division of Wildlife staff biologist Katie Dennison said that she “didn’t expect to see a male bear this big” in Ohio.Dennison described the bear as “young middle aged” and believed it came to Ohio to breed. The bear tipped the scales at a whopping 576 pounds. Adult males average 300 pounds, but can weigh anywhere from 150 to 700.
Chad Murphy from USA Today Network contributed to this report.
This article originally appeared on The Daily Record: Wayne County on low-end of state black bear sightings
Reporting by Staff Report / The Daily Record
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Staff Report | USA TODAY Network
