Center, Internet, Wildlife Damage Management
Human–Wildlife Interactions
Distance-dependent Effectiveness of Diversionary Bear Bait Sites
Date of this Version
Fall 2015
Document Type
Article
Citation
Human–Wildlife Interactions (Fall 2015) 9(2): article 12
doi: 10.26077/5a9d-rk41
Special topic: Connections between IPM and WDM
Abstract
Baiting black bears (Ursus americanus) to sites outside a community can alleviate famine-induced spikes in human–bear conflicts. But little is known about effects of distance between baits and communities. Bears were lured out of towns in California’s Tahoe Basin to baits in adjacent forests. Delay between onsets of baiting and decline in bear–human conflict was directly related to each community’s distance from the nearest bait. The amount and rate that conflicts declined were inversely related to distance. In 7 communities about 1 km from a bait, conflicts declined 41% after 1 month and 93% after 3 months; mean rate of decline was 1.2% per day. In 3 communities ≥8 km from any bait, declines were delayed ≤2 months before falling at 0.6% per day (18% decline). Total conflicts in the year after baiting (n = 346) were 35% lower (n = 533) than in the year before baiting.