Wildlife research is essential because it protects biodiversity, guides conservation policies, and helps humans understand complex ecosystems. Without that research, wildlife conservation/management and human/wildlife conflict mitigation would be equal to swinging a plastic pool noodle at a moving piñata while blindfolded. In short, ineffective. Studying wildlife through various points of factual data collection provides for an informed, science-driven basis for making defensible decisions about wildlife health, population management, habitat management, and conflict mitigation.
Some individuals preach coexistence with black bears but openly criticize and disavow black bear research. To be sure, research on black bears and coexisting with black bears are not two separate philosophies but are two sides of the same coin. Research helps us figure out which tools will work best to achieve coexistence between humans and black bears. One of the ironies of those opposed to black bear research is that they often name black bears to ID them, follow black bears around to learn about their movement patterns and habitat use, and use science-based aversion techniques to mitigate human/black bear conflict. But when black bear managers/biologists tag a black bear for identification, collar a black bear to learn its movement patterns and habitat use, and implement science-based aversion techniques to mitigate human/black bear conflicts, those same folks opposed to research cry foul.
Why is black bear research within the Lake Tahoe Basin so important? Over the last twenty years, the urbanization of black bears has become a harsh reality in numerous locations across North America with an urban/wildland interface and a local black bear population. The Lake Tahoe Basin black bear population has grown into one of the densest in North America, and it has become the poster child for human/black bear conflict issues. Black bear researchers are just starting to learn about the extreme impacts urbanization is having on black bear behavior, physiology, overall health, and mortality.
It is essential to investigate the biology of an entire population. Research would be flawed if scientists focused only on examining individuals. Exploring the entire population’s ecology ultimately benefits the whole population. For example, if biologists study only conflict black bears, they will have a very myopic view of urban black bear behavior and physiology. In order to make good decisions about management practices that will benefit most of the black bear population and help create better coexistence between black bears and humans, it is paramount to study the broader black bear population. Focusing on studying individual “celebrity” bears would be a disservice to both the black bears and the humans that live in the Lake Tahoe Basin. The broader our view is of movement patterns, survival, behavior, preferred natural food sources, mortality, and conflict history, the better our options will be for management practices that support healthy black bear populations. Without long-term research, we would have no metric to show whether specific management practices are having beneficial or detrimental effects.
A comprehensive wildlife research program needs to include both passive data collection methods, such as collecting scat or hair samples from the field and using trail cameras, and more aggressive methods such as trapping, tagging, and sometimes GPS collaring. To some, the more aggressive type of research is often misunderstood and perceived as always ending in lethal removal of a black bear, but that perception couldn’t be further from the truth. The vast majority of trapping and data collection events in both California and Nevada focus on research/data collection, and not lethal removal. I would be lying if I said no trapping events were associated with relocation or lethal removal, but they are the exception, not the rule. Thankfully, when the difficult decision is made to remove a conflict black bear from the environment, research and DNA evidence provide the tools to target the correct black bear. Thus, non-target animals are spared. This is a huge improvement over past practices when any black bear that happened to be in the trap would be removed regardless of whether it was the actual target.
Wildlife management should never be based on primal emotions. In conclusion, I would stress that if your goal is to see fewer black bears being hit by cars, fewer black bears being relocated or lethally removed, better human/black bear coexistence strategies, and better informed black bear management practices, each and every one of you should be screaming for more science-based black bear research by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Nevada Department of Wildlife.
-By Toogee Sielsch, South Lake Tahoe