Jeremy Sanders
Environmental Biology 105
Spring Semester 2015
Environmental Biology 105
Spring Semester 2015
Summary
Using a black bear corridor as a
means to moderate some of the adverse ecological effects of habitat
fragmentation for the Black Bear. This document discusses principles of
evaluating and designing a wildlife corridor to facilitate use by black bears.
Introduction
The American Black Bear, or Ursus Americanus, can live in a variety
of habitats. Because of their versatile diet, they inhabit both coniferous and
deciduous forests as well as wide open areas. Currently, conservation efforts
for black bears have been effective and in most areas, black bears are
increasing and can sustain managed sport hunting. The key to successful
co-existence between humans and bears is to recognize that it is no longer
possible for either species to occupy all habitats but that where co-occupancy
is possible and desirable. Most conflicts are the result of people
unintentionally feeding bears, most often by allowing them access to household
garbage or bird feeders. Although uncommon, black bear attacks on humans
occasionally occur, especially in areas where they come in frequent contact
with people and their food. Black bears can be found all over the United
States. Black Bear habitat fragmentation leads to more human conflicts
in Florida. During the week of April 22, 2014, between Ocala National Forest
and Orlando, FL, human-black bear interaction made headlines. After a bear bit
a woman in her garage. This problem is not new. Both bear and human populations
in Florida have been growing since the 1970s.
One temporal variation is when black bears
become a nuisance because of their lack of food or fight for food. When humans
and other animals fight for the same type of food is when black bears have a
temporal issue. Their food habits are so in tune with other animals that
sometimes the bears have no choice. Lucky enough the American Black Bear will
eat a diversity of insects.
Creating
this corridor, large enough to regulate the species, but also to avoid any spatial characteristics of an isolated
bear. “The spatial memory and foraging strategies of four adult
captive-born American black bears were explored in four experiments using a simulated
foraging task. In the first three experiments,
each session consisted of two phases separated by a delay: During the
exploration phase, subjects foraged among a
set of baited and un baited sites. During the delay, the same locations were re
baited and subjects were released again and allowed to search the sites (search
phase). In Experiments1a and 1b, different sites were baited each day and the
interval between exploration and search was short (4 hr or 15 min). Subjects were not accurate at recovering the food
items in either experiment. In Experiment 2, an “informed forager” paradigm was
used in which one subject was given privileged knowledge about the location of
the food during the exploration phase and was later released with an “uninformed”
competitor during the search phase. The bears did not achieve above-chance
recovery accuracy even in the
presence of a competitor. In Experiment 3, the same two of four sites were continually
baited and the bears were released simultaneously over a period of 20 days,
with each baiting separated by 2 or 3 days.
As a group, the bears’ foraging accuracy with repeated baiting and longer intervals
approached greater than chance accuracy. Results suggest some limitations on
bears’ use of spatial memory in captive environments, but reveal
the potential for use of spatial memory over longer delays.” (Vonk)
When
building this corridor there are some abiotic
factors that must be taken into consideration. Bears depend on water and
without water the bear’s won’t be able to survive for long and lose part of
their diet which is fish. Not to mention fresh, clean, air. Without air, all
things would stop living and the American black bear is no different. (http://americanblackbear96.weebly.com/habitat.html)
In some
parts of the country we are noticing a decline in the black bear population.
Black bears use trees for feeding and marking purposes, both resulting in
cambial damage, which reduces growth rates and can increase mortality rates.
This edge effect is strongly
impacted by human activities including forest management and supplemental feeding.
Another issue, also caused by humans, is with light pollution. While light at night can be beneficial, neutral,
or damaging for individual species, its presence invariably disturbs ecosystems.
For example. Some species of spiders avoid lit areas, while other species are
happy to build their spider web directly on a lamp post.
Building
this wildlife corrido will cause the impediment
for black bears from their biggest predator, humans. The design with be
based on the black bears core habitat
to help the bear adapt to its surroundings well. Regardless of how man made
this corridor will be, we will do our very best to utilize the topography the bears are already used
to. That way when the bears wake up they won’t begin to have an instant drop in
the birth rate.
We will be
using this geographic isolation to
help the increase in black bear population. Thus far, threats only exists in a
few isolated places. American black bears are found through much of Canada, the
United States, and the northern half of Mexico. This corridor is going to have
to be somewhat of an adaptive management
style. Bear populations are not going to remain the same. They’re going to
change over time. One issue that we would like to avoid is the inbreeding of the black bear. The
reason for this is, in general, it is quite bad for a population or an organism
to be very inbred. There is a well studied, although, only partially understood
phenomenon called inbreeding depression. This genetic interchange is helped when black bears kick out males from
families to avoid them mating with females.
This
corridor will assist with the black bear to live freely and to be able to hunt
and sleep and mate in a matter that is not in any way disruptive towards humans
or the other way around. The corridor will be home to species such as plants,
reptiles, amphibians, birds, insects, and small mammals. There will also be a
small, man made, river to allow fish to move up and down the river and to allow
the black bears to catch the fish as if they were still in the wild. The
corridor will be extremely expensive but we feel that doing this will start a
snow ball effect to let the species thrive. Once we get the bears to a safe
mark, we will re-introduce them into the wild. The important thing is to maintain
minimal human-animal interaction. In Mexico all hunting seasons for American
black bears have been closed since 1985, and the species is considered nationally
endangered. The Louisiana black bear, a subspecies of American black bear, was
listed as threatened under the U.S. Endangered Species Act in 1992 because of
severe loss and fragmentation of its habitat. The wildlife corrido will need to
have 15.8 million acres. 9.5 million that are already protected and 6.3 million
acres of remaining opportunity area that do not have conservation status. The
exact proportion of the opportunity area that needs to be protected for
functional connectivity within the corridor has not yet been determined.
Protected areas include 4.7 million acres of federal land, 4.5 million acres of
state land, 162,776 acres of country and city land and 204,232 acres of private
land with permanent conservation status. There are 1.46 million acres within
the Corridor opportunity area that are high priority for conservation through
the Forever program and approximately 600,000 acres that are priorities for conservation
through US Fish & Wildlife Services Greater Everglades Program. The Corridor provides habitat for 42 federally listed endangered
species, 24 threatened species and 15 candidate species. At the state level,
there are an additional 176 species listed as endanged, 56 as threatened and 29
as species of special concern. Examples of threatened and endangered species
include Crested Caracara, Everglades Snail Kite, Florida Grasshopper Sparrow,
Florida Scrub-Jay, Red-Cockaded Woodpecker, Whooping Crane, Wood Stork, Florida
Panther, West Indian Manatee, Green Turtle, Leatherback Turtle, Hawksbill
Turtle, Gulf Sturgeon, Okaloosa Darter, Sand Skink, Eastern Indigo Snake, Frosted
Flatwoods Salamander, Highland’s Tiger Beetle, Choctawatchee Beach Mouse,
Piping Plover, Etonia Rosemary and Okeechobee Gourd. There are 992 named rivers and streams crossing the Corridor
that include 1150 miles of designated paddling trails. There are also 920 miles
of the Florida National Scenic Trail within the Corridor.
