Factors such as the distribution of bears in an area and the availability of open territories may affect their willingness to settle near humans. Our findings indicate that black bears can adjust from living in more natural areas to living in areas with some human development. Planners classify such areas as country suburbs or early suburbanization. These bears lived in more populated areas, with densities in their territories of at least 190 houses per square mile (75 houses per square kilometer). We developed movement models for each of our collared bears, and found that their responses to some landscape features varied.įor example, we found some bears avoided human development less than others. The story was more nuanced when we considered individual bears. Florida Fish and Wildlife, CC BY-ND A wild bear becomes suburbanized Bears avoided developed areas at all times of day.Įasy dinner pickings. In summer, when natural foods are more abundant and bears are least metabolically stressed, we did not observe these behavioral changes. Still, bears try to mitigate this risk as much as possible by altering their natural activity patterns to visit developed areas at night, when human activity is lowest. In spring when natural foods are scarce, and in fall when bears need to gain weight for hibernation, the attraction of food rewards outweighs the associated risks. For black bears, the reward is high-calorie supplemental food and the risk is encounters with humans. Viewed through this framework, an individual animal’s behavior is the result of a cost-benefit analysis that trades off food reward against risk. Our findings and existing knowledge about black bears’ seasonal energetic demands indicate that bears may be operating in a “ landscape of fear” – a conceptual model that ecologists originally developed in studies of prey species such as elk. However, we also found that in spring and fall, when the bears had increased caloric demands, they altered their natural daily rhythms to move through human-developed areas at night. As expected, the bears we tracked moved around more in daytime than at night, and avoided humans and developed areas during the day. We examined data from 76 black bear GPS collars across central and western Massachusetts. And after they emerge from their dens in springtime, natural foods are typically scarce until plants start to leaf out and flower.īlack bears’ energy requirements during these phases can drive their behavior. Massachusetts Division of Fish and Wildlife, CC BY-NDĭuring hibernation bears can lose up to one-third of their body weight. A black bear steals a snack from a bird feeder.
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