NEWS FROM WCS

SCOTT SMITH (1-718-220-3698), ssmith@wcs.org

STEPHEN SAUTNER (+1 718-220-3682), ssautner@wcs.org

Study: Absent for more than 80 years, bears returning to Nevadas Great
Basin

Conservation efforts paying off; more than 500 bears living in historic range

Scientists look at genetic consequences of recolonization; find sufficient connectivity

across mountain ranges exists to maintain populations

High res version here

Black bear cubs in Nevada cr: Jon Beckmann

@WCSNewsroom
Newsroom

A new study from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), Nevada Department of
Wildlife (NDOW), and the University of Nevada-Reno finds that conservation efforts
have resulted in successful re-colonization of black bears into portions of their historic
ranges in the Great Basin in Nevada. The animals had been absent from these areas
for more than 80 years.

WCS and NDOW teamed with researchers from the University of Nevada-Reno to use
hair and blood samples from bears to examine the genetic consequences of this natural
recolonization in a large-bodied mammal, and this is one of the few empirical examples
to do so.

While unregulated hunting and conflicts with settlers' domestic livestock contributed to
the bears local extirpation from the Great Basin in the early 1900s, it is likely that
landscape changes due to clear-cutting of forests throughout western and central
Nevada during the settlement era played an important role as well. But as fossil fuel
replaced timber as a heat and energy source, forestry and grazing practices evolved,
and reforestation and habitat regeneration occurred in parts of the black bears former
range.

In addition to habitat regeneration, the study authors attribute the successful

recolonization to conservation efforts conducted by WCS and NDOW over the course of
more than 20 years. These included public education, investing in bear-proofing
communities, reducing conflict rates between carnivores and people, and reduced
human-caused carnivore mortality rates.

As a result of the efforts, a once negative population growth rate for bears in urban-
interface areas became an average annual growth rate of 16 percent for more than a
decade, and re-colonization of historic ranges in the mountains of the Great Basin
ensued. Once extirpated from their former range, more than 500 black bears have now
recolonized these areas.

In addition to the demographics of the recovery the scientists studied the impacts of this
loss and subsequent recovery on the genetic makeup of the population.

Genetic analysis demonstrated that the population has indeed undergone an extirpation
followed by a re-expansion. The re-colonizing bears originated from a source
population in the Sierra-Nevada Mountains (refugia for bears during the last 100 years)
and expanded in a west-to-east pattern back into the Great Basin.

This study represents a great partnership between wildlife management and

geneticists, said Jason Malaney, lead author of the genetic study. Wildlife managers
deploy long-term field-surveys of black bears, collect tissue samples along the way,that
are then used to better understand the complexities of re-colonization. This resuts in
improved management outcomes.

The authors of the study conclude that based on their results, black bears in the
western Great Basin appear to currently maintain levels of connectivity between various
mountain ranges that are sufficient to prevent genetic bottlenecks following
recolonization. Further, black bears in the western Great Basin best represent a genetic
metapopulation (a group of populations separated but of the same species with
individuals that interact with other populations).
.
Finally, they note that as the human-footprint expands over time in the region, this level
of genetic connection among various mountain ranges may not last without
conservation efforts to maintain connectivity.

The recovery of large carnivores is relatively rare globally yet this is the goal of
conservation," said WCS Conservation Scientist Jon Beckmann. Understanding the
mode of recolonization and its genetic consequences is of broad interest in ecology and
critical to successful conservation programs.
Natural rewilding of the Great Basin: genetic consequences of colonization by black
bears (Ursus americanus) appears in the current edition of Diversity and Distributions.
Co-authors include: Jason L. Malaney of University of Nevada, Reno; Carl W. Lackey of
Nevada Department of Wildlife; Jon P. Beckmann of the Wildlife Conservation Society;
and Marjorie D. Matocq of University of Nevada, Reno.

About the Wildlife Conservation Society. WCS saves wildlife and wild places worldwide
through science, conservation action, education, and inspiring people to value nature. To achieve
our mission, WCS, based at the Bronx Zoo, harnesses the power of its Global Conservation
Program in nearly 60 nations and in all the worlds oceans and its five wildlife parks in New
York City, visited by 4 million people annually. WCS combines its expertise in the field, zoos,
and aquarium to achieve its conservation mission. Visit: newsroom.wcs.org Follow:
@WCSNewsroom. For more information: 347-840-1242.