Date of Award:
8-2017
Document Type:
Dissertation
Degree Name:
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department:
Wildland Resources
Committee Chair(s)
Lise M. Aubry
Committee
Lise M. Aubry
Committee
Melissa J. Reynolds-Hogland
Committee
David N. Koons
Committee
Eric M. Gese
Committee
Joseph M. Wheaton
Abstract
The American black bear (Ursus americanus) has made a robust recovery within the human-dominated, social-ecological systems characterizing the Mid-Atlantic United
States. For example, in northwestern New Jersey (NJ), USA, black bear abundance increased from an estimated 450-500 in 1996 to 3200-3400 in 2010. Bear recovery
coincided with increasing human populations, coupled with shifting settlement patterns toward sprawling suburban communities. Consequently, conflicts have rapidly proliferated over the past three decades and resulted in >1400 incidents of verified property damage, >400 livestock kills, >250 pet attacks and/or kills, seven human attacks and one human fatality since 2001. The New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife (NJDFW) has spent in excess of $9 million USD on black bear management and has concluded that this level of conflict is fiscally and culturally untenable. Conservation efforts must now pivot toward shaping bear behavior to facilitate human-bear coexistence within the increasingly shared landscapes of the Anthropocene.
We assessed whether NJDFW’s newly implemented black bear harvest was effective in curbing bear population growth and mitigating increasing human-bear conflicts. Adult females and bears with a history of conflict with humans (i.e., “problem” bears) were disproportionately harvested. Problem bears, across all age classes, were
significantly more likely to be recaptured in urban and wildland-urban interface habitats. During harvest years, the population growth rate of bears in wildland habitats stabilized, while the anthropogenic component of the population decreased dramatically. We recommend that a carefully regulated harvest continue to be part of an integrated management strategy that includes education and incident-response protocols, which collectively will help reduce human- black bear conflicts.
Checksum
27a83c14f9a4eaa1fc3e5d0651cb20c2
Recommended Citation
Raithel, Jarod D., "Integrating Black Bear Behavior, Spatial Ecology, and Population Dynamics in a Human-Dominated Landscape: Implications for Management" (2017). All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023. 6633.
https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/etd/6633
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