Item talk:Q160227

The Effects of Climate Variability and Change on Human-Bear Conflict in North America

Human-bear conflicts are a common problem and management priority for many wildlife agencies in North America. Bears are adaptable to anthropogenic activity and food sources which creates opportunities for conflict including property damage, livestock depredation, and human injury. Acute climate events and long-term directional climate change can exacerbate human-wildlife conflict by changing resource availability, increasing overlap between humans and wildlife, and driving competition. Despite the pervasive threat that climate change poses, studies evaluating climate, human-wildlife conflict, and adaptive management strategies are limited. The goal of this work is to examine how climate variability and change have already and could potentially affect bears and human-bear interactions in North America. The synthesis will cover two species: black bears, due to their wide geographic range and frequency of human-bear conflicts, and brown bears, which have a much more limited range but share similar conflict drivers with black bears. The research team will summarize the state-of-the-science on how climate affects black and brown bears and human-bear conflict, use insights to outline management implications, and determine future research needs in an in-depth synthesis paper and fact sheets. As human-bear conflict is predicted to increase in the next decade, the work will help state wildlife managers understand how the spatial and temporal patterns of human-bear conflict may be altered by changes in climate, and can be used to inform bear management plans and conflict prevention strategies.