Black Bear Exploitation of Urban Environments: Finding Management Solutions and Assessing Regional Population Effects
Thank you Twin Buttes for your recent donation of $8,193! The money has been used to purchase two GPS collars for the research component of this project. Many thanks!!!
Project Partners: The Colorado Division of Wildlife, Bear Trust International, Colorado State University, National Wildlife Research Center, and Wildlife Conservation Society
Project Site: Durango, Colorado
Project Overview
For this comprehensive project, we will help a bear-habituated community become bear-resistant, measure the outcome scientifically, and use data from the wild research bears to develop education programs for children in Colorado and beyond. Findings and methods from this project will provide a scientifically designed and tested approach to mitigating human-wildlife conflicts throughout the U.S. and elsewhere.
Project Goals
This project will meet the following goals: 1) increase human safety and decrease bear mortality by preventing bears from becoming habituated to human trash, 2) provide critical information, based on sound science, to help guideeffective wildlife conservation and community planning, 3) provide innovative education programs for Colorado children, as well as for children nationwide, 4) foster community participation, and, 5) serve as a model for other communities that exist in bear habitat.
Scientific Objectives:
1) Scientifically evaluate how bears respond to the installation of bear-resistant containers and determine the relative influence of natural foods, anthropogenic foods, conflict management, and harvest on bear population dynamics along the wildland-urban interface.
For this goal, we will: a) link the demographic rates (survival and reproductive rates) of urban and wildland bears to their resource-use patterns; b) quantify the effects of resource-use, conflict bear management (lethal removals and translocations), and harvest on bear demography; and c) evaluate the role of annual variation in natural foods on bear movement and space-use.
2) Develop population and habitat models to support the sustainable management of black bears in Colorado.
For this goal we will: a) use multiple data sources (harvest, DNA mark-recapture, and telemetry data) to develop improved bear population models to guide annual harvest recommendations; and b) build regional habitat models to better predict bear density, direct the location of future data collection, and identify key seasonal resource areas.
3) Test management strategies for reducing bear-human conflicts
For this goal, we will: a) experimentally test how the large-scale reduction of anthropogenic food in an urban environment affects bear-human conflicts and bear behavior; b) evaluate a spatially targeted harvest program designed to reduce nuisance bears; and c) develop and evaluate a strategic statewide plan for the translocation of nuisance black bears. We will implement all three of these management strategies, using novel approaches, and quantify their success in reducing urban bear-human conflicts.
Education Objective:
We will use data collected from wild bears in the Colorado Project to develop innovative education programs that use “deeper learning” techniques. This education program will be implemented into local schools in Colorado, and will be available to teachers nationwide.