Discover the Largest Bear Ever Caught in Washington 

The Department of Fish and Wildlife doesn’t keep a record of the biggest Washington bear. However, there are several contenders for the title throughout history. Many large bears are never recorded making it possible that the heaviest bear has never actually been weighed.

With that in mind, here are some of the top contenders for the heaviest bear in Washington state.

The Orchard-Fed Giant

In 2015, a very large bear was struck be a vehicle and killed. Surprisingly, no one was harmed in the crash. After being weighed, the bear ended up being over 700 pounds. This puts it well-above the usual weight of a bear in this state.

After a bit of research, it became clear to those involved that the bear was a nuisance bear from a nearby orchard. State wildlife officers had been called out to the orchard many times, as the bear was eating fruit and damaging trees. Therefore, the bear’s size likely has to do with its pretty steady fruit diet.

The wildlife officers had attempted to catch and relocate the bear many times without any luck until it was hit on a nearby freeway.

Responders on the scene did report that the bear was quite heavy around the middle. It has obviously gorged itself past what most bears do. One even commented that the bear was probably good for “12 months of hibernation.”

Sadly, the bear was hauled to the dump sometime later. Because of the risk of disease, the bear meat could not be donated to local food banks. Therefore, we don’t have an exact weight on the bear. However, the truck was weighed after the bear was put into it for transport, and the difference in weight was about 700 pounds.

The On-The-Run Black Bear

In 2022, there was an “unnaturally large” black bear terrorizing the Issaquah area. The bear had committed multiple counts of property damage, and local wildlife officers were attempting to relocate him. The bear seemed to like residential areas, which is obviously a problem.

Much of his large weight likely has to do with his diet of trash and human food. Given that he tended to stick around residential areas, he likely learned that these areas often have the most food – and he took full advantage of that.

The bear was collared. However, the collar was designed to fall off when he reached a certain point. Sadly, this never occurred as expected. Therefore, wildlife officials were even more pressed to find him. They were worried that the collar was too tight and would eventually cause damage to the bear.

That, on top of the bear’s feeding habits, made the bear priority #1 for local wildlife officers.

While the officers do have GPS data on the bear, he has been surprisingly hard to locate. Therefore, officials do not know exactly how large he is. However, by all reports, he is much larger than usual.

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The photo featured at the top of this post is © iStock.com/Mark Lee