Monitoring Huckleberry in Northwest Montana to Investigate Response to Vegetative Treatments

The remote and ecologically rich forests of northwest Montana are home to an endangered population of grizzly bears (Ursus arctos). Within the Cabinet/Yaak ecosystem, recent research suggests an average population estimate of 45 bears. While grizzly bear core-areas and security requirements have been identified in the Cabinet/Yaak ecosystem, figuring out how to best manage the lush vegetation that provides foraging opportunities within that defined habitat has yet to occur. Large portions of this designated habitat are in need of ecological restoration. Since a high percentage of the Cabinet/Yaak grizzly bear’s diet is supplied through berries, grasses, and forbs, it is crucial to develop the knowledge today that can transform portions of the forest back into the edible landscapes that were once historically abundant. Because huckleberries (Vaccinium spp.) comprise a substantial amount of the annual diet volume for Cabinet/Yaak grizzly bears, land managers are beginning to design projects with the intention of increasing the amount of huckleberry foraging opportunities on the forest. Strong anecdotal evidence suggests that huckleberry prefers minimal overstory, yet few studies have been undertaken that document the plant’s response to management. Addressed is a partnership that has formed between the Yaak Valley Forest Council, USDA Forest Service, and the USDI Fish and Wildlife Service to monitor and document the effects the vegetative treatments have on huckleberry abundance

Grizzly Bear Restoration in the North Cascades of Washington

The North Cascades of Washington was one of 6 recovery areas where grizzly bears were known or believed to exist at the time of listing under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in 1975.  The North Cascades recovery plan identified the need for a National Environmental Policy Act process to evaluate a range of alternatives to restore this grizzly bear population.  In January of 2017 the Draft Grizzly Bear Restoration Plan for the North Cascades Ecosystem was released for public comment by the National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.  This plan evaluated four alternatives for population restoration. Alternative A was “No Action” with continued existing management practices focused on improved sanitation, poaching control, motorized access, education, and monitoring to evaluate natural restoration.  Alternative B was “Ecosystem Evaluation Restoration” which would transplant up to 10 grizzly bears to the North Cascades and monitor those individuals for 2 years before deciding whether to proceed with additional releases. Alternative C was “Incremental Restoration” in which 5-7 grizzly bears per year would be transplanted to the North Cascades to achieve an initial population of 25 individuals. Monitoring would determine success of the program and the need for additional releases of bears. Alternative D was “Expedited Restoration” in which 5-7 grizzly bears/year would be transplanted to the North Cascades until a population of approximately 200 individuals was achieved. All action alternatives possess an experimental (ESA 10j) population option. The draft document is available for review and comment through March 14, 2017 at:  https://parkplanning.nps.gov/projectHome.cfm?projectId=4414

Conservation of Threatened Canada-USA Trans-border Grizzly Bears Linked to Comprehensive Conflict Reduction

Mortality resulting from human–wildlife conflicts affects wildlife populations globally. Since 2004, we have been researching conservation issues and implementing a comprehensive program to reduce human–bear conflicts (Ursus spp.; HBC) for 3 small, fragmented, and threatened grizzly bear (U. arctos) populations in the trans-border region of southwest Canada and northwest USA. We explored the temporal and spatial patterns of conflict mortality and found that HBC contributed significantly to the threatened status of these populations by causing decline, fragmentation, and decreased habitat effectiveness. Our program to reduce HBCs primarily included strategic private lands purchased to reduce human density in wildlife corridors, the reduction of bear attractants where human settlement and agriculture exists, and the nonlethal management of conflict bears. Attractant management strategies encompassed public education, cost-share electric fencing, bear-resistant garbage containers, and deadstock containment. We taught bear safety courses and bear spray training to increase tolerance and give people tools to avoid negative encounters with bears. We radio-collared and used nonlethal management on potential conflict bears and have a ~75% success rate in that the bear was alive and out of conflict situations over the life of the radio-collar. We identified important backcountry grizzly bear foraging habitat for motorized access control to reduce conflict and mortality and provide habitat security to reproductive females. Ongoing monitoring has demonstrated that our comprehensive HBC program has resulted in a significant reduction in human-caused mortality, increased inter-population connectivity, and improved habitat effectiveness. Several challenges remain, however, including an increase in the numbers of young grizzly bears living adjacent to agricultural areas. Herein we discuss strategies for how to integrate conservation vision into future HBC reduction programs

The bear circadian clock doesn’t ‘sleep’ during winter dormancy

Most biological functions are synchronized to the environmental light:dark cycle via a circadian timekeeping system. Bears exhibit shallow torpor combined with metabolic suppression during winter dormancy. We sought to confirm that free-running circadian rhythms of body temperature (Tb) and activity were expressed in torpid grizzly (brown) bears and that they were functionally responsive to environmental light. We also measured activity and ambient light exposures in denning wild bears to determine if rhythms were evident and what the photic conditions of their natural dens were. Lastly, we used cultured skin fibroblasts obtained from captive torpid bears to assess molecular clock operation in peripheral tissues. Circadian parameters were estimated using robust wavelet transforms and maximum entropy spectral analyses

American Black Bear Population Fragmentation Determined Through Pedigrees in the Trans-Border Canada-United States Region

Fragmentation of species with large numbers of individuals in adjacent areas can be challenging to detect using genetic tools as there often is no differentiation because genetic drift occurs very slowly. We used a genetic-based pedigree analysis to detect fragmentation in the American black bear (Ursus americanus) across 2 highways with large adjacent populations. We used 20 locus microsatellite genotypes to detect parent-offspring and full sibling pairs within a sample of 388 black bears. We used the spatial patterns of capture locations of these first order relatives relative to US Highway 2 in northwest Montana and Highway 3 in southeast British Columbia to estimate the number of close relatives sampled across the highways (migrants/km of highway length) as an index of fragmentation. We compared these values to an expected migrant/km rate derived from the mean values of simulated fractures in the Highway 2 and Highway 3 region. We found evidence that these highway corridors were fragmenting black bear populations, but not completely. The observed migrant/km rate for Highway 2 was 0.05, while the expected rate was 0.21 migrants/km. Highway 3 had an observed migrant/km rate of 0.09 compared to the expected rate of 0.26. None of the 16 bears carrying GPS radio collars for 1 year crossed Highway 2, yet 6 of 18 crossed Highway 3. Pedigree and telemetry results were more closely aligned in the Highway 2 system evidencing more intense fragmentation than we found along Highway 3. Our results demonstrate that pedigree analysis may be a useful tool for investigating population fragmentation in situations where genetic signals of differentiation are too weak to determine migration rates using individual-based methods, such as population assignment

Grizzly Bear Abundance and Density in The Cabinet-Yaak Ecosystem

We use genetic detection data from concurrent hair corral and bear rub sampling to provide abundance and density estimates for the threatened grizzly bear (Ursus arctos) populations in the Cabinet Mountain and Yaak regions in northwestern Montana and northern Idaho collectively known as the Cabinet-Yaak Ecosystem (CYE). We used Huggins models in Program MARK and model averaging to generate region- and sex-specific abundance estimates. To estimate the average number of bears present, we estimated mean bear residency on our sampling grid from telemetry data and used it to correct our super population estimates for lack of geographic closure. Total grizzly bear abundance in the CYE in 2012 was 49 (95% CI: 44-62) with an average of 45 (95% CI: 42-65) present at any one time. Population size in the Cabinet and Yaak regions was equal: Cabinet: 22 (95% CI: 20-36); Yaak: 22 (95% CI: 22-39). Grizzly bear density in the CYE was 4.5 (95% CI: 3.7-5.3) grizzly bears/1000 km2. With parentage analysis, we document the first natural migrants to the critically low and interbred Cabinet population and the Yaak population by bears born to parents in neighboring populations. These events support data from other sources suggesting that the expansion of neighboring populations may eventually help sustain the CYE populations

Report from UCSF.

Table S1. Body weights (kg) of captive bears just prior to entering winter dormancy. (PDF 630 kb

Cabinet Mountains grizzly bear study /

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Final report : east front grizzly studies /

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