Researching black bear-human interactions and black bear ecology in Colorado
During the summer of 2009:
Sharon Baruch Mordo, recipient of the first Bob Lewis Fellowship Award, is working on her dissertation.
Her next major presentation will be at the Defenders of Wildlife Conference in Denver, Nov. 16-18.
AFFILIATIONS:
Sharon Baruch-Mordo and Dr. Ken Wilson from the Dept. of Fish, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology of Colorado State University.
Dr. Stewart Breck, USDA-WS, National Wildlife Research Center.
John Broderick, Colorado Division of Wildlife.
The Roaring Fork Valley Urban Black Bear Study is a cooperative effort between Colorado State University, Colorado Division of Wildlife, and USDA-WS-National Wildlife Research Center. Initiated in 2005, our study goals are to better understand urban black bear ecology in the towns of Aspen and Glenwood Springs, Colorado, and to evaluate the efficacy of human education in reducing the availability of anthropogenic food sources for bears.
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An adult male #843 (aged as 13 years
old) was captured in Aspen on 8/1/2005. This male spent
most of his time in Castle Creek before heading west towards
Sopris Mountain where his collar was dropped. Researchers
never recaptured the bear, but later found that he returned
to Castle Creek where he was harvested in the fall of 2006.
Recent publications by Sharon and collaborators:
Baruch-Mordo, S., S. W. Breck, K. R. Wilson, and J. Broderick. 2009. A Tool Box Half Full: How Social Science Can Help Solve Human-Wildlife Conflict. Human Dimensions of Wildlife 14:219-223.
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How do bird community assemblages relate to changes in
vegetation characteristics in riparian zones?
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The bird community on the left bank
of RF6-2.3 (photo above) where structurally complex native vegetation
characterizes riparian habitat, which differs from the bird community at nearby
RF6-3.2.
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RF6-3.2 is in the same reach and illustrates where vegetation structure and composition have been simplified and altered by a variety of development activities.
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URBAN BLACK BEAR ECOLOGY STUDY
final project update 10/14/08
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We wrapped up our 4th and last summer field season this past September. To date our crew participated in over 80 captures and processing events of bears (including 9 dens), and we have collared and monitored over 40 individuals. While most of our effort in the past 4 years focused on the town of Aspen, we also gained valuable baseline data on bears in the vicinity of Glenwood Springs. Currently there are 10 bears collared in Aspen and 1 bear in Vail, and we hope to re-fit them with new collars over the winter denning season. Our goal, pending funding, is to continue the study as we feel that we are only starting to understand the urban system as it pertains to black bears and bear-human interactions, and as it is influenced by human actions, bear population trends, and natural and anthropogenic food source dynamics.
We learned a lot about bear movement and behavior in town. While many analyses have yet to be completed, we can report that we witnessed extensive and interesting movements, much to the surprise of the best wildlife managers and bear biologists in the state! In addition, we had the opportunity to monitor bears through one of the best (2005) and worst (2007) natural food production years, witnessing behavioral plasticity with respect to the amount of time spent in town. Through the deployment of GPS collars on bears, we gathered valuable data about bear resource selection in town via backtracking methods. Along with future movement behavior modeling, analyzing these data should inform wildlife managers of specific attractants and hot spots for bears in town. In addition, we completed 3 experiments evaluating the efficacy of education and enforcement in reducing availability of anthropogenic food sources to bears. By directly measuring people's actions, these experiments will hopefully help guide municipalities and provide a valuable lesson for management agencies on the effectiveness, or lack thereof, in changing people's actions and behaviors through education and enforcement efforts. We hope that results from our study will help allocate management resources more efficiently and overall reduce bear-human conflicts in the urban environment.
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This study has been a remarkable community effort. We would like to highlight our past and future commitment to providing results of this project to the community. We gave multiple interviews for local and state media outlets including PlumTV, 9News, CBS4, Colorado Public Radio, and numerous newspapers. We presented project progress: locally at the Aspen Center of Physics, Aspen Center for Environmental Studies, the Aspen Police Department and US Forest Service Ranger Station; nationally at conferences including the 2007 Regional meeting of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, the 2008 Berryman Institute Symposium, and recently at the 2008 Pathways to Success: Incorporating Human Dimensions into Fisheries and Wildlife Management; and at academic outlets including the wildlife biology program at the University of Montana, Missoula, and the Program for Interdisciplinary Mathematics, Ecology, and Statistics at Colorado State University. We continue to be committed to sharing our results at local, national and international venues engaging the local community, wildlife managers, researchers and interested individuals in our work.
Finally, this project would not have come to life without the support of local citizens, municipalities, organizations and agencies. We begin by thanking the numerous landowners who allowed us to trap on their property, gain access to monitor bears and backtrack to GPS locations, and conduct the experiments. We also thank the city of Aspen and Pitkin County for continuing support in gathering GIS data, participation in our project, finding housing and parking solutions, and financial support. In particular we would like to thank the Aspen Police Department for being a valuable partner in applying the enforcement experiment this year. Numerous organizations assisted in achieving our goal including the Aspen Center for Environmental Studies, 10th Mountain Division Hut Association, and the Aspen SkiCo. We also thank the Aspen Ranger Station of the US Forest Service for valuable support including logistics, housing, parking, and lending a hand whenever needed. Also thanks to the Colorado Division of Wildlife, in particular individuals in Area 8 including the Area Wildlife Manager, Perry Will, and the local District Wildlife Manger Kevin Wright. Their involvement has been invaluable in completing this project from understanding of the system and its management challenges to logistical support through rain, snow, and Colorado's abundant sunshine. And last, but not least, we have appreciated the gracious support of the Aspen Field Biology Lab throughout! Their logistical, financial, and spiritual support never wavered and we can't thank them enough! We will miss working with you all’Ķ
Sincerely,
Sharon Baruch-Mordo & Dr. Ken Wilson
Department of Fish, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology
Colorado State University
Dr. Stewart Breck
USDA-WS-National Wildlife Research Center
John Broderick
Colorado Division of Wildlife
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URBAN BLACK BEAR ECOLOGY STUDY
project update 8/16/08
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Our fourth and final field season is almost over with 6 more weeks to go. We captured 8 bears this season and collared only 4 bears, as the other 4 were young males which we did not collar due to their dispersal potential. With the bears monitored since 2007, we now have a sample size of 11 bears near Aspen, 8 of which are reproductive females. We continue to backtrack and monitor movement and resource selection of these bears in the urban environment.
We initiated 2 experiments this year with the cooperation of the City of Aspen Police Department and the Colorado Division of Wildlife to assess the efficacy of enforcement and education in reducing availability of anthropogenic attractants to bears. We hope to complete the experiments by the end of August, and preliminary results will be presented in an upcoming international conference: Pathways to Success - Increasing Human Capacity for Global Human-Wildlife Coexistence.
To date we are evaluating 15 translocations. We recently retrieved a collar from a male bear that was translocated to the Roan Plateau, traveled back to the West Elk Mountains, then continued to move northeast bordering the Sawatch mountain range, and ultimately was killed as a second strike west of Wolcott (see map). His movements continue to demonstrate the capabilities of bears to roam extensively, especially when translocated.
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URBAN BLACK BEAR ECOLOGY STUDY
project update 7/7/08
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It has been a quiet season for the bears in Aspen as so far movement data indicates most bears are staying in the high-country. Consequently, our trapping success isn't great, although we have captured and collared 3 bears this season (see photo). Therefore, we are now monitoring a total of 10 bears in and around Aspen. As our field season progresses we will continue to backtrack the few individuals that are in proximity to town and gear up for the experiment evaluating the efficacy of management tools in reducing the availability of anthropogenic food sources to bears.
We had 2 important recaptures this summer; one was an adult female previously monitored in 2006, the other was a young male from 2007. Both bears dropped their collars due to the spacer release. We are learning that our spacers last for about 1 year, as 3 more bears collared in 2007 have dropped their collars. One of them was 531, a 21 years old adult male captured in 2007. He was a very interesting bear who despite being captured near town has spent most of his time in Castle and Conundrum creeks. He eventually denned up Conundrum creek where his collar was also found (see map).
Our 2008 bear crew (left to right ’Äì Luke Scheidler, Amy Gann, and Ayaka Asada) kneeling next to 081, an adult male captured in May.
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Sharon Baruch-Mordo (left)and Laurie Smith (right) holding cubs of the year for female bear 806 after completing den work and changing the sow's collar with help from Lisa Wolf (background), veterinarian from Colorado Division of Wildlife.
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Urban Black Bear Ecology Study
project update 3/24/08
This winter season we are working to replace GPS collars on bears captured in Aspen during the spring and summer of 2007, so collars will have enough battery power to continue data collection in 2008. So far we have successfully changed collars for 1 male denned on Aspen Mountain, and 4 females denned in Castle Creek, Woody creek, Aspen Mountain, and Smuggler Mountain. One female had 3 yearlings (2 males and 1 female) denned with her, and 2 females gave birth to new cubs of the year (for a total of 2 females and 1 male). Den structures encountered included of dug dens under boulders and rock crevices as well as dug dens under shrub and root matter. We are looking forward to continuing den work for at least 2 more females, and potentially another 2 males pending weather and snow conditions.
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PUBLICATION GOALS:
In addition to a dissertation to be written by Sharon Baruch-Mordo,
we plan to publish several peer-reviewed papers. Some of the potential
publication outlets include; Journal of Wildlife Management, Conservation
Biology, Ecology, and Landscape Ecology.
ARTICLES:
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Movement of adult male #843's movements from 8/1/05 - 9/14/05 in Castle
Creek and his September excursion towards Sopris Mountain.
GPS data were collected every 15 minutes.
Sharon Baruch-Mordo
Sharon Baruch-Mordo, Ph.D. candidate in the Graduate Degree Program
in Ecology at Colorado State University.
http://www.warnercnr.colostate.edu/research/bear
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