Demography and viability of a hunted population of polar bears

• Main Authors: Mitchell K. Taylor, Jeff Laake, Philip D. Mcloughlin, Erik. W. Born, H. Dean Cluff, Ferguson Aqqalu Rosing-asvid Ray Schweinsburg, François Messier
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2005
• Subjects: Key words; demography; harvest; mark-recapture; polar bear; Ursus maritimus; population viability analysis; program MARK; recruitment; survival; Baffin Bay; Canada; Greenland; Arctic; Baffin
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.509.1072; http://pubs.aina.ucalgary.ca/arctic/Arctic58-2-203.pdf

ABSTRACT. We estimated demographic parameters and harvest risks for a population of polar bears (Ursus maritimus) inhabiting Baffin Bay, Canada and Greenland, from 1974 to 1997. Our demographic analysis included a detailed assessment of age- and sex-specific survival and recruitment from 1221 marked polar bears, which used information contained within the standing age distribution of captures and mark-recapture analysis performed with Program MARK. Unharvested (natural) survival rates for females ( ± 1 SE) from mark-recapture analysis were 0.620 ± 0.095 (cubs), 0.938 ± 0.042 (ages 1 –4), 0.953 ± 0.020 (ages 5 –20), and 0.919 ± 0.046 (ages 21+). Total (harvested) survival rates for females were reduced to 0.600 ± 0.096 (cubs), 0.901 ± 0.045 (ages 1 –4), 0.940 ± 0.021 (ages 5–20), and 0.913 ± 0.047 (ages 21+). Mean litter size was 1.59 ± 0.07 cubs, with a mean reproductive interval of 2.5 ± 0.01 years. By age 5, on average 0.88 ± 0.40 of females were producing litters. We estimated the geometric means ( ± bootstrapped SDs) for population growth rates at stable age distribution as 1.055 ± 0.011 (unharvested) and 1.019 ± 0.015 (harvested). The model-averaged, mark-recapture estimate of mean abundance ( ± 1 SE) for years 1994 –97 was 2074 ± 266 bears, which included 1017 ± 192 females and 1057 ± 124 males. We incorporated demographic parameters and their error terms into a harvest risk analysis designed to consider demographic, process, and sampling uncertainty in generating likelihoods of persistence (i.e., a stochastic, harvest-explicit population viability analysis). Using our estimated harvest of polar bears in Baffin Bay (88 bears/yr), the probability that the population would decline no more than could be recovered in five years