That's interesting. I have never seen one quite like the ones you posted. I usually find pined snapped off or pushed over from territorial marking, and I find clawed trees, usually pines and hemlocks, but I have never seen a hardwood broken up like that. My guess is that it is for the same purpose. In the north, bears will often line their dens with leaves and pine boughs and stuff like that, but they don't den up hard here like they do there, and this doesn't seem to be the purpose for that. That's an interesting find though and I'm glad you posted it! Neat to see.
Twincedargap, the one pic of that hardwood pushed over with bite marks on it is an American Chestnut. You can see the dead chestnut tree standing behind it. The chestnut tree pushed over likely had the blight around the bottom. What month was that picture taken? That is a pretty sizeable American Chestnut with healthy looking bark in the mid portion. You don't reckon there were just in that tree, do you? Was the pic taken sometime from late August to early October?
I just noticed that the first pic you posted is also an American Chestnut tree, twincedargap. Hmm.....wonder if these bears are trying to tell us something!!!!
The pix I posted of the broken trees were from early October. The larger pines are from then or more recent. The dude standing is 6'2" and that pic was 8 days ago.