The Wildlife Conservation Society is claiming that in a study they conducted, urbanized black bears, “weigh more, get pregnant at a younger age, and are more likely to die violent deaths”. The study involved tracking 12 so-called “urbanized” bears living around the Lake Tahoe, Nevada area for 10 years. They also tracked 10 so-called “wildland” bears in what the Science Daily described as, “outlying wild areas”.
According to what the WCS is saying, the bears in the Lake Tahoe area weighed 30% more than wildland bears, got pregnant earlier and died younger, mostly getting run over by cars.
Before we go getting out the treadmill, birth control pills and bear whistles for our cars, we need to put the study into perspective. First, how representative of the bear population is studying 12 Lake Tahoe bears and 10 area bears? We don’t know. Anytime a wildlife study is done, there are so many variables that need to be considered before any real conclusions can be made.
Secondly, we have no idea why the bears moved from the wildlands to the urban areas. Authors of the study suggested they came for the garbage. It may appear they did but without knowing the real reason they left the wildland area, we can only surmise. We know nothing about the wildland habitat, the availability of food sources, etc. during this time period.
Of course this makes for great media fodder and discussions on forums and blogs but how “scientific” is the study? With the little information made available in this one article, certainly no real conclusions can be made about the differences between the two types of bears.
Another point to make that appears in this article. The author of the article in Science Daily explains about Nevada’s existing bear population.
Right now, populations in Nevada remain steady due to bears immigrating from neighboring California.
To me this leaves unanswered a very important question that seemingly goes unaddressed in this “study”. Why are bears migrating to Nevada from California?
Tom Remington
