Bears and Research
in the Canadian
Rockies

Bears and
People

 Bears and Habitat

Maintaining healthy populations of bears requires maintaining high quality, intact bear habitat. This fundamental connection between habitat conservation and species persistence motivates conservation biologists who study bears to investigate the following habitat questions:

• what are the habitat requirements of bears for feeding, resting, mating, denning and dispersal?
• how do human factors such as recreation, settlement or industrial development influence the viability of bear habitat?
• how can we maintain habitat for bears?

This section presents a variety of key research findings from the Central Canadian Rockies with respect to these questions. Collectively the research demonstrates that maintaining intact habitat, and therefore healthy bear populations, is an especially difficult challenge in this region because quality habitat for bears and other wildlife species is naturally fragmented — it tends to occur in patches in the valley bottoms and along the low- to mid-elevation slopes. Studies that assess the degree and quality of human impact on the landscape further this notion by suggesting that even here, in an apparently vast landscape, bears are feeling the pressures of human presence.

• Habitat Backgrounder
• Habitat Requirements
• Human Impact
• Habitat Connectivity
• Footnotes and Other Sources Cited