Bear Ecology
A project to examine many aspects of black bear ecology in the Great Lakes—St. Lawrence forest region was initiated in 2006. The study is based at the Harkness laboratory and is being conducted on 2 study areas—the western half of Algonquin Park and Wildlife Management Unit 49 near Parry Sound.
Initially, the study will focus on black bear habitat use by evaluating the suitability of a Habitat Suitability Index model that was recently developed for the Landscape Guide which will be used in the future by field staff in the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources to direct forest management planning. This model makes predictions about black bear use of habitat relative to stand age and composition in 4 periods annually: spring, summer, fall and denning. Data from GPS-collared bears will be used to develop a fine-scale description of habitat use which will be compared to the model in the Landscape Guide in order to evaluate the appropriateness of the model. This portion of the project is being led by graduate student Andrea Maxie.
Another component of the project is more directly associated with the study examining limiting factors on moose populations near the southern edge of the range in Ontario. It has been suggested that black bears may be significant predators of moose calves, which may act as a limiting factor on moose population growth. In this study we will compare black bear habitat use in the moose pre-calving and calving period to the habitat occupied by cow moose. Data for this component will come from GPS-collared bears and GPS-collared cow moose. Essentially, we are asking the question “Can we detect the predator tracking the prey?”
Another aspect of black bear feeding ecology that has long fascinated me is that black bears feed seasonally on spawning suckers. I hope to begin a study in 2007 that will look at the behaviour of bears at sucker spawning streams—which bears exploit this abundant food resource? Are dominance hierarchies established? What is the consumption rate of bears? What is the impact of bear predation on sucker reproductive success and population dynamics? What are the consequences of this food resource on bear body condition and reproductive success?
Live-trapping of bears began in May 2006. During the summer field season we had total of 33 captures of 20 different bears in Algonquin , and 5 captures of 4 bears in Wildlife Management Unit 49. Currently there are 4 radio-collared female bears in Algonquin Park and 3 in WMU49.
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