Grizzly Bear Habitat
Bears are on the move.
Grizzly bears are movers and shakers on this coast. Although known to live primarily on the mainland, our recent research shows that these animals have expanded their range to include several coastal islands. To continue documenting this change, we employ insight about where bears are living from Traditional and Local Ecological Knowledge (TEK/LEK), speaking to the people that live and work on the land and waters around Klemtu. We complement this place-based knowledge with scientific tools: remote cameras and DNA identification from non-invasive passive hair snags. All of these knowledge sources confirm that grizzly bears are moving to islands and are even raising their cubs there. We are now working to translate this research into resource management and policy change to protect island habitats used by these bears.We also seek to discover what this could mean for black and Spirit bears, who compete for food and space with the more dominant grizzly bears. See our recent publication on this project below.
Service, C.N., M.S. Adams , K.A. Artelle , P.C. Paquet, . L.V. Grant and C.T. Darimont. 2014. Indigenous knowledge and science unite to reveal spatial and temporal dimensions of distributional shift in wildlife of conservation concern. PLOS ONE 9(7): e101595