- Movement and Habited Use: Elko/Crowsnest Study.
Grizzly bears are continuously distributed from Northern Canada to near Missoula, Montana.
Along this distribution, there are only two fractures where movements appear significantly
reduced. These areas include the Trans-Canada transportation corridor between Calgary,
Alberta and Revelstoke, B.C. and the Highway 3 transportation corridor between Pincher
Creek, Alberta, and Salmo, B.C. In addition to the highways and railways, along these
corridors, there are areas of intensive human use including rural and urban development,
agriculture, ranching, forestry, coal mining, and 4-season recreation complexes. Because
grizzly bears disperse gradually, successful dispersal across the corridors is reduced
forming near Island populations.
Understanding how grizzly bears use habitats, move, and survive in such highly
developed landscapes is important to guide ongoing developments to ensure grizzly
bear connectivity across these fractures is not further reduced. Using GPS
radio-collars, this project has monitored 12 grizzly bears between Elko, B.C.
and Crowsnest Pass.
- Coastal-Interior Transition Study.
This research project has been designed to evaluate existing grizzly bear/forestry
best management practices in the coast-interior transition of southern BC
(Lillooet Timber Supply Area). By conducting a scientific investigation of the
ecology of grizzly bears, the project will examine hypotheses related to the
impacts of forest practices such as forest road access, timber harvesting and
post harvesting silviculture practices on landscape level forage supply,
stand-level critical habitats, and denning habitat. Research results will be
translated into explicit habitat and population objectives and targets, revised
guidelines for forest planners and forestry practitioners, as well as peer
reviewed publications. Objectives will be met through a combination of DNA/hair
collection in a mark-recapture inventory, capture, radio-collaring and monitoring
of a representative sample of resident bears, and the creation of a predictive
model of habitat value based on spatially-explicit resource selection functions.
Five grizzly bears have been collared with GPS/ARGOS up-link collars. These
collars send location data every 4 days and thus enable field crews to examine
sites used by the bears shortly after the bears leave.
- Habitat Supply Modelling
- Development of analytic and decision models for assessing grizzly bear needs from forest management
objectives" is a BC Forest Science Program research project to provide generalized, analytic, and
decision-making models to assess spatial-temporal habitat supply and mortality risk to grizzly
bears from scenarios involving forest management plans. The project's web site is located at
- An Analysis of the Policy of Variant Level Old Forest Representation
- This project makes references to the impact of harvesting and grizzly bear habitat.