Publications

Abstract: 

Urbanization is an extreme form of land use alteration, with human development driving changes in the distribution of resources available to wildlife. Some large carnivores have learned to exploit anthropogenic food resources in urban development, resulting in human-carnivore conflict that can have detrimental impacts to people and carnivores, as exemplified by American black bears. Management agencies commonly promote the use of bear-resistant garbage containers for reducing conflicts, but little is known about the actual behavioral responses of bears to this intervention. To understand whether black bears alter their behavior in response to changes in residential waste management, we investigated patterns of bear behavior in Durango, Colorado, where anthropogenic attractants were experimentally manipulated. Using location data from collared black bears, we modeled resource selection and movement in response to areas that had received bear-resistant garbage containers compared to those that did not. Bears avoided residential areas where garbage availability had been reduced, and this avoidance response increased over subsequent years, potentially suggesting that bears were learning from the management intervention. Bear movement rates, however, were not notably affected by the garbage reduction. Our findings highlight the importance of reducing the availability of anthropogenic attractants for changing bear behavior and reducing risk of urban human-bear conflict, and that these responses can strengthen over time as bears learn from the management intervention.

Keywords: 

Animal Behavior, Human-Wildlife Conflict and Coexistence, Learning, Resource Selection and Movement, Spatial Ecology, Urban Ecology, Ursus americanus

Abstract: 

Carnivore populations globally have largely declined, and coexistence, where humans and carnivores share landscapes, plays a crucial role in carnivore conservation. However, the term “coexistence” is often used in scientific and popular literature without being clearly defined. Herein, we provide a global perspective on what coexistence is and how it is studied. We conducted a systematic map of 366 articles published between 1987 and 2020 to characterize human-carnivore coexistence literature according to coexistence definitions, temporal trends, geographic and taxonomic focus, and four thematic aspects of coexistence: carnivore ecology, human endeavors, social conflict and human-carnivore conflict. We used chi-squared tests and generalized linear models to describe the thematic, taxonomic and geographic focus of the literature. The human-carnivore coexistence literature increased exponentially in the past 30  years, but few articles defined the term “coexistence” and those that did used inconsistent definitions. Thematically, coexistence research showed less emphasis on social conflict, even though it is a major driver of conflict regarding carnivores. The literature also focused primarily on larger carnivores, rather than endangered carnivores, and was primarily led by European and North American authors. We offer a simplified, formal definition of “coexistence” that incorporates the four thematic aspects of coexistence encountered in the literature: Co-occurrence of sustainable carnivore populations and human endeavors with minimal human-carnivore and human-human conflict. We encourage researchers to focus on the social dimensions of coexistence, such as human attitudes towards carnivores or the underlying causes of social conflict, and to broaden the taxonomic and cultural breadth of their projects.

Keywords: 

Carnivore; Coexistence; Conflict; Conservation