Are Bear/Wolf spawns affected by season?

[Max Kaladin]

Do bears and wolves spawn more in the fall?  

I'm a new player (been playing for a little over a week).  From basically the second day to the end of August, I have never seen a bear or wolf near my home.  I've ranged a fair distance from my home in several directions and I have seen a few bears and wolves (and died to wolves twice).  Then, when September started, I suddenly kept running into bears (or F****** Ninja-Bears, as I call them) near my house.  And one wolf.  I died at least once from each encounter since they're absolutely silent until it's "ROAR", RED, DEAD (no redemption).  One of them was even in a large open plain where I thought I'd have plenty of distance to see and avoid any bears or wolves (and I did, unfortunately, the deer it was chasing led it right to me and I died).  Once I know they're there, I can kill them and I have three bear pelts to prove it.  My last encounter was after the new patch as well.  

I can think of three possibilities.

1.  The RNG was either kind to me for 6 months (or lulling me into a false sense of security).
2. There is some kind of "noob" grace period for a few months that kept them away from me (but I don't think that's it since I saw two bears on day two and blundered into a wolf that killed me while trying to avoid the bears and in my first abortive world I got killed by a bear on day 2)
3. It's somehow seasonal as September is the first month of Fall (and colors were already changing in August (the hottest month of the year where I live IRL and very much still summer).  

As a followup, when winter starts do bears disappear (hibernating)?

[Zane Mordien]

Season has nothing to do with it the last time someone posted the code. Unless it was updated in 1.21, Its all RNG and the bears always spawn sooner or later. 

[LadyWYT]

5 hours ago, Max Kaladin said:

Do bears and wolves spawn more in the fall?

To my knowledge, it's mostly RNG. However, it does seem like bears are a bit more inclined to show up in the fall, or at least it seems like I tend to see brown bears more often in the fall and winter than spring and summer. Black bears I see whenever. I've also seen the occasional polar bear spawn on mountaintop glaciers outside the arctic. My best guess is that the temperature parameters might be better meeting the spawn requirements for certain bears at certain times of the year, which is how polar bears can be on glaciers or brown bears seem to show up more often in the fall. 

But that's all pure speculation on my part.

5 hours ago, Max Kaladin said:

As a followup, when winter starts do bears disappear (hibernating)?

They do not disappear, no. While the game does try to simulate realistic animal behaviors, the simulation isn't that realistic. At least not yet.

[Max Kaladin]

Thanks for the replies. I suspect the temperatures are leading spawns appearing to be seasonal. I have not seen any lately but I’ve also stuck closer to home as well. I’ll. Just have to see.