BearSmart Initiatives and Connectivity_Ciarniello and McLellan_

Pursuing long-term coexistence through Bear Smart Initiatives and population connectivity modelling
Lana Ciarniello
Michelle McLellan
North American Bear Expert Team, IUCN BSG
Human-Bear Conflicts Expert Team, IUCN BSG
Pemberton Meadows, located in southwestern British Columbia, is an agriculturally based community with restrictions on land use due to its location within the Agricultural Land Reserve. Commercial agriculture production, including bovine livestock, potatoes, grains, and hay, is prioritized. The meadows divide two Threatened but growing Grizzly Bear Populations: The South Chilcotin with 23 grizzly bears per 1,000 km2, and the Squamish-Lillooet with 18-30 grizzly bears per 1,000 km2. The Coast to Cascades Grizzly Bear Initiative commissioned a Bear Hazard Assessment (BHA) to support recovery, increase connectivity, and proactively manage potential Human-Bear Conflicts (HBC) between these two recovering populations. The BC Bear Smart Program requires a BHA, which is an area-specific profile related to bears, humans, and human-bear conflicts. Bear Smart aims to identify site-specific, community-based solutions to HBC and move from reactive to proactive management of conflict bears.
This presentation focuses on the steps required to become a designated BC Bear Smart community, using Pemberton Meadows as a site-specific example. To formulate area-specific coexistence recommendations, we utilized bear occurrence and mortality reports, a resident survey, site visits, and grizzly bear location data. The meadows did not have issues with garbage management, but ecological traps were identified, resulting in the agricultural lands fragmenting the populations and threatening recovery and long-term population persistence, particularly of females.
We recommend two linkage corridors, Camels’ Back Ridge and Oxbow Lake, to allow bears to move safely across the Meadows. The linkage design incorporates existing Wetlands Management Areas, recommends conservation easements on ranch lands, and proposes the acquisition of key land parcels. The plan aims to restore connectivity for bears within Pemberton Meadows, while reducing the competition between people and bears for space on the landscape. Taking a proactive approach to prevent or resolve conflicts before residence tolerance for bears declines is crucial to maintaining a positive attitude towards grizzly bear recovery.
In a concurrent monitoring study, we developed seasonal resource selection functions from 57 collared grizzly bears to identify core habitat areas and predict potential pathways of connectivity among core habitat areas and populations in the same region. We evaluated connectivity by identifying natural and human-caused barriers, estimated the least-cost-paths among core habitat areas and across population fractures, and identified pinch points in connectivity using circuit theory. The resulting models highlight areas where grizzly bear movement is constricted into pinch points due to geographic and human-caused barriers, where interpopulation connectivity is most likely. By overlaying this broad scale selection and connectivity model pattern with the finer scale initiatives in the Pemberton Meadows, we highlight the importance of multi scaled approaches for long-term coexistence