Grizzly Bear Program - Foothills Research Institute

The Foothills Research Institute's Grizzly Bear Program was created in 1999 to provide knowledge and planning tools to land and resource managers to ensure the long-term conservation of grizzly bears in Alberta. Key to its efforts are sound scientific field research, practical results, and a large-scale or "landscape level" approach toward grizzly bear conservation. Significant research findings for wildlife management and the development of important land management tools have been developed and include:

New remote sensing procedures that produce habitat maps for large areas using satellite imagery (Figure 1);
New resource selection function (RSF) models that combines the remote sensing based habitat maps and grizzly bear location data to identify where grizzly bears are most likely to be on the landscape (Figure 2);
New models, using graph theory analysis, that identify grizzly bear movement corridors across the landscape (Figure 3);
New techniques to monitor and assess grizzly bear health. Preliminary work has identified significant differences between two populations of grizzly bears in Alberta, in relation to reproductive health measures. We are now in the process of looking at grizzly bear health and possible links with landscape condition for all populations in Alberta.
Advancement in the area of DNA grizzly bear census techniques to enhance the ability to monitor grizzly bear population status over time;
New procedures and techniques for the capture and handling of grizzly bears for research and management purposes. These procedures are now being adopted as new leading edge standards for grizzly bear handling in Alberta and other jurisdictions in North America.

Land and resource managers are now using the identified tools and findings from this research program for resource planning purposes.

What are Its Tasks?

The program's original study area was located in west-central Alberta, south of Highway 16 with the Brazeau River as its southern boundary. The study area encompassed 10,000 km². In 2003, the Foothills Research Institute's Grizzly Bear Program began expanding its study area and by 2008 will have maps and models available for the entire grizzly bear range in Alberta.

Habitat maps produced from satellite imagery represent the corner stone of our program. In addition, we require detailed grizzly bear movement data obtained from grizzly bears captured and fitted with GPS collars to create RSF (resource selection function) models that identify the probability of grizzly bear occurrence on the landscape. With these outputs we can then generate graph theory based grizzly bear movement corridor maps. When combined, these products represent the most important grizzly bear conservation tools available to land and resource managers who are faced with important decisions regarding land management in grizzly bear habitat.

Within the expanded study area, researchers are looking at habitat and landscape features linked to grizzly bear presence, persistence and health. We are also creating computer programs that allow land managers and developers to incorporate research results into land use planning. With funding from Alberta Sustainable Resource Development, grizzly bear population estimates based on DNA-hair snag censuses are also being undertaken.

What Lies Ahead?

The Foothills Research Institute's Grizzly Bear Program will pursue two primary objectives:

1. Provide habitat maps, probability of grizzly bear occurrence maps (RSF), and bear travel corridor maps for all grizzly bear population units in Alberta.

2. Pursue our understanding of grizzly bear health, specifically body condition and reproductive health parameters, as these relate to landscape and environmental parameters.

We are just beginning to understand the relationship between environmental/landscape conditions and grizzly bear numbers and population health. In fact we still cannot answer the question as to how far we can modify and utilize grizzly bear habitat and still maintain healthy grizzly bear populations. Our research team is now pursuing this line of inquiry as we move along the eastern slopes of Alberta, sampling grizzly bear populations in various natural sub-regions within a diversity of landscape conditions and levels of human use. If we are able to answer these questions and understand the relationships between landscape change and grizzly bear health we can provide land and resource managers with knowledge vital to sustainable resource development issues.

Figure 1. Habitat mapping schedule that uses satellite imagery to create habitat maps for large areas.