Grizzly bear response to linear features and human recreational activity

• Main Author: Ladle, Andrew
• Other Authors: Boyce, Mark S. (Biological Sciences), He, Fangliang (Renewable Resources), Derocher, Andrew (Biological Sciences), Stenhouse, Gordon B., Wheatley, Matthew (Renewable Resources)
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: University of Alberta. Department of Biological Sciences. 2017
• Subjects: psy; envir; Ursus arctos
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10402/era.43737

Degree: Doctor of Philosophy Abstract: A major side-effect of industrial activity is the associated linear-feature footprint and increase in recreational access. Alberta’s threatened grizzly bear (Ursus arctos) populations overlap with a multitude of different potential forms of human disturbance, including human recreational activity. Identifying the effects of recreation on grizzly bear behaviour and population recovery is challenging; both in terms of quantifying spatio-temporal variation in multiple types of human recreation at scales relevant to grizzly bears, and in documenting population-level responses by such a behaviourally variable species as grizzly bears. My first objective was to develop a method to quantify motorised and non-motorised recreational activity across a linear-feature network using trail cameras. Using a generalized linear mixed-effects model to estimate temporal variation in sampling, and Ordinary Kriging to interpolate spatial variation across a linear-feature network, I was able to create spatio-temporally varying maps of recreation that can be incorporated into habitat selection studies. I incorporated grizzly bear radiocollar data within an integrated step selection analysis (iSSA) to predict the importance, significance and directional effect of motorised and non-motorised recreation on grizzly bear habitat selection and movement. I concluded that grizzly bears select for trails when recreation is absent, however they display no response when recreational activity is high. Male grizzly bears also altered their movement behaviour in proximity of trails with high recreational activity; reducing movement speed when activity was absent and increasing speed when recreational activity was high. In general, males showed greater responses to recreation than females, and both male and female bears showed a stronger response to motorised versus non-motorised recreation. Using trail camera data on grizzly bears and black bears (U. americanus), I investigated the influence of recreational ...