[DogByte6RER]

The author should have done more due diligence in his research ...

http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/black-bear/

Weight: 200 to 600 lbs (90 to 270 kg)

[bunkerhill7]

We don`t do “due diligence in ...research” here-

Since we live in the mountains, we actually go out into the woods in groups and actually get confronted by big bears all the time-
Sometimes they come down from the highest mountains and raid the garbage bins in town and those garbage fed bears are HUGE!
We always bring pans and big spoons to create a racket to scare the bears off.
‘

Up here we`uns see big black bears all the time gettin` into the berry patches and hunkering across the open mountain meadow grass into the woods- They go pretty big here- I have see some half as big as a 1955 Oldsmobile- A black bear here matures fully grown at 3 years or so- if he is 800 pounds at one year he is well over 1,000 pounds at maturity.

But they go well over a thousand pounds here in the mountains at maturity-viz:

“
...ent a Ticonderoga nimrod who bagged a 1-yr-old bear which tipped the avoir- dupois at 821 lbs.”
http://news2.nnyln.net/ticonderoga-sentinel/search.html

[bunkerhill7]

Sorry- just west of here they grow-`em twice as big `n bigger!

“Four Theresa hunters bagged a 2511 pound black bear near Cranberry Lake, a few days ago.”
http://news.nnyln.net/tupper-lake/search.html

[Daffynition]

http://www.americanbear.org/Size.htm