Photo: UBC Okanagan

A new study from UBC Okanagan suggests bears who live near people require two things to survive.

Researchers have discovered that adaptive behaviour to become nocturnal is essential for bears living near people along with immigrant bears moving to these bears' regions.

The study utilizes 40 years of data from more than 2,500 of the province's grizzly bears. It was discovered that bear populations that live near humans depend on other bears coming from other places to that area, in order to sustain population numbers.

And in order to avoid human conflict, bears must become nocturnal.

However according to Liber Ero post-doctorial fellow and study author Clayton Lamb, many of these bears will die before they adapt to living with people.

“Human coexistence with large carnivores poses one of the greatest conservation challenges of our time,” he says. “Bears that live near people are actively engaging in nocturnal behaviour to increase their own survival and reduce conflicts with people, but this is often not enough to sustain the population. These populations rely on a lifeline of immigrants from nearby areas with low human impact.”

Lamb works alongside Adam Ford, an assistant professor in biology at UBC Okanagan and principal investigator in the Wildlife Restoration Ecology (WiRE) lab. The WiRE lab researchers explore the gaps between applied and theoretical science, in relation to ecology and decision making. A key contribution from WiRE researchers is the way humans can better coexist with animals and nature.

Carnivores do pose threats to people and property however Ford says that humans are fascinated by them.

“This creates a profound tension in conservation,” he says. “How can people and carnivores coexist?”

“Bears in human-dominated areas increased their nocturnal behaviour by two to three per cent past their third year of age and this led to a two to three per cent increase in survival rates each year,” Ford says. “In wilderness areas we detected no significant age-related shift in bear nocturnality, suggesting that humans are inducing the bears to change their habits.”

Tolerance for carnivores and solutions for coexisting are on the rise, according to Lamb. Limiting human influence at night will lead to carnivore movement and wildlife highway crossing help with survival without interfering with peoples transportation.

Mortality rates for bears are too high to maintain populations without immigration. The survival rate for bears living near humans is quite low and there are a lot of dead bears.

“There are two outcomes for young animals in landscapes of coexistence — adapt to people by becoming more nocturnal or die because of people,” says Lamb. “Although it sounds bleak, grizzly bear populations are currently sustaining themselves near people in many places, and even increasing.

"Key examples include range expansions in southwest Alberta and the eastern Okanagan near Big White. But if we were to double the human population in BC or halve the wilderness areas, this balancing act of populations sustaining themselves with wilderness immigrants might collapse.”