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Grizzly bears, roads, and human-bear conflicts in southwestern Alberta

Because most grizzly bear mortalities occur near roads, the Province of Alberta plans to implement gated access management. Little is known about how grizzly bears will respond to road closures because the effects of roads are confounded by habitat and human use. I examined mechanisms underlying grizzly bear habitat selection near roads on private and public lands of southwestern Alberta. I incorporated habitat selection models into an analysis of conflict risk. Grizzly bears selected areas near roads with low traffic and were most active at night on private lands, where human use was low. However, habitat selection varied among individuals, and roads were not a consistent predictor of overall habitat selection across individual bears. Patterns of habitat selection led to the emergence of ecological traps on private land. Access and attractant management should be implemented to reduce bear-human conflicts, and decrease displacement of bears from high-quality habitats. / Ecology

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:AEU.10048/1222
Date11 1900
CreatorsJoseph, Northrup
ContributorsBoyce, Mark (Biological Sciences), Dercocher, Andrew (Biological Sciences), Proctor, Heather (Biological Sciences), He, Fangliang (Renewable Resources), Stenhouse, Gordon (Foothills Research Institute)
Source SetsLibrary and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis
Format771878 bytes, application/pdf

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