This study was conducted to identify aspects of the ecology of the grizzly bear (Ursus aretos) and black bear (Orsus americanus) in coastal British Columbia for both research and management purposes. Information on the feeding ecology and habitat use of black and grizzly bears was collected during field studies conducted in 1976 and 1977. Trails were cut into the study area and systematically travelled to collect scats and other sign. Bears were trapped and subsequently monitored with telemetry. The study of black and grizzly bear movements was constrained by the logistic difficulties of the coast. Five grizzlies were located a total of 36 times and four black bears a total of 42 times. Extensive overlap in the use of space occurred. Movement between watersheds in coastal British Columbia occurs, but the extent of travel is unknown. Marking behaviour of bears on trees and on the ground was described. No reliable method was found to distinguish individual bears from other bears using their tracks. Two criteria were found which separate the tracks of grizzlies from those of black bears. The toes in grizzly tracks are either very close together or joined, whereas the toes in black bear tracks are separate. A less reliable criteria is that the fifth toe in a grizzly track does not register below the midline of the other four toes, whereas in a black bear it does.. Scats collected from May through September averaged 88 percent vegetable matter and 12 percent salmon (Qncorhynchus sp.) and insects. The bears in the study area consumed 21 different recognizable foods. The bulk of the diet came from eight of these foods: sedge (Carex sp.), ladyfern (Athyrium filix-femina), spiny wood fern (Dryopteris austriaca), huckleberry (Vaccinium sp.), salmonberry (Rubus spectabilis), devil's club (Oglopanax horridum), insects, and salmon. The spring and early summer diet consisted of sedge, herbs and ferns, and the current year growth of shrubs. Fruits and salmon were used extensively in August and September. As the green bear foods mature, the levels of crude protein, crude fat, soluble carbohydrates, and moisture content decreased, while crude fibre increased and gross energy and total ash remained constant.. For salmonberry, devil's club, and huckleberry, the fibre:protein ratio was lower in the part of the plant which the animal consumed than in that which it did not consume. As the berries matured, the levels of crude protein and crude fibre decreased, and the levels of crude fat, soluble carbohydrate, and moisture content increased. A simple model was presented which discusses the energetic importance of salmon and berries to the coastal grizzly bear. The vegetation in the study area was grouped into types and the bear foods in these types were described. The implications of the results of this study to the future management of bears on the coast of British Columbia were discussed. / Forestry, Faculty of / Graduate

An introduced population of Sciurus carolinensis planted at Stanley Park, Vancouver, B.C. about 1913 has maintained itself successfully for at least 38 years in competition with the indigenous squirrel Sciurus douglasi. This population was studied through a period of 18 months. It was found that the gray squirrel has reached a point of saturation in the mixed deciduous-conifer forest type favored by it. The spring population approximates .7 per acre and the autumn population about 1 per acre. Two litters are born per year to adult squirrels, one to yearlings. These arise from matings in March and April and June and July. The ratio between breeding females and young at weaning age is 1 to 1.6, indicating a very low reproductive success. The gray squirrel is not territorial in its behavior. Females move through an area of 5 to 15 acres with little seasonal variation. In the winter the males have about the same range of movements as the females but during the rest of the year they move in a non random manner over an area of 50 to 55 acres. Polygamy is the rule with several males competing for the receptive female. Dominance among such a group of males is positive, physical and not associated with territory. The most important food plants are the vine maple (Acer circinatum) and the broad-leafed maple (Acer macrophyllum). Food storage takes place in a random fashion within a radius of 50 feet from the source. Subsequent recovery of stored food is by random searching over the storage area. The Douglas squirrel exerts physical dominance over the gray squirrel but has a different habitat preference that reduces competition between the two species. Twenty-six birds nests were watched in the squirrel area and only two were destroyed by them. / Science, Faculty of / Zoology, Department of / Graduate

The lithostratigraphy and Pliensbachian ammonite fauna of a sequence of Pliensbachian to Bajocian sedimentary rocks, informally referred to here as the Spatsizi Group, from the Spatsizi map-area (104 H) in north-central British Columbia are examined in this thesis. Twenty Five species of ammonites representing fifteen genera from Pliensbachian rocks of the Spatsizi Group are described and their stratigraphic ranges in the thesis area determined. The Spatsizi fauna is comprised primarily of ammonites of Tethyan aspect and also contains elements endemic to the East Pacific faunal realm. The Spatsizi fauna is located on the northern half of the Stikine terrane of the western Cordilleran eugeocline, and is surrounded by biogeographically related faunas containing ammonites of Boreal affinity in addition to Tethyan and East Pacific forms, indicating that northern Stikinia occupied a position within the mixed Boreal/Tethyan zone of the eastern Pacific region during the Pliensbachian. Subsequent tectonic displacement of Stikinia transported it northward to its present position. The Spatsizi Group is informally defined and is divided into five informal formations; the Joan, Eaglenest Gladys, Groves, and Walker Formations. Each formation reflects deposition in a different sedimentary environment affected by varying degrees of volcanic (epiclastic or pyroclastic) input Rocks of the Spatsizi Group represent the basinward sedimentary equivalents to the coeval Toodoggone volcanics that formed along the southern flank of the Stikine Arch. Facies transitions from the Stikine Arch in the north to the sedimentary basin in the south are best developed in sediments deposited during Pliensbachian and Early Toarcian times, when epiclastic sands and conglomerates accumulating on the southern flank of the arch graded southward into silts and muds in the basin. Two phases of non-coaxial deformation folded and faulted the rocks in the thesis map area. Deformation was probably related to interaction between the Stikinia and the North American continental margin during accretion. / Science, Faculty of / Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, Department of / Graduate