“brown bear” (CC BY-ND 2.0) by Jordi Payà Canals

Background information

The brown bear, also known as Grizzly bear or Ursus arctos was on the verge of extinction a few years ago. They were once subject to hunting for their meat and their fur, and later on human expansion created a huge habitat loss for the brown bear which decreased their population drastically. Since then, the human intervention to help the Brown bears was very successful and helped their status go from on the “verge of extinction” to “least concerned” according to the IUCN Redlist of Threatened Species.

Organizations such as WWF helped the brown bears by ensuring that its habitat was being preserved (they signed contracts with companies, etc.). Brown bears have to be preserved because of their big role in the environment since they are important management indicators for other species and since they are on top of the food chain they play a great role in our ecosystem.

Wildlife crossings

Canada_Hwy_between_Banff_and_LakeLouise_Alberta.jpg, Wikipedant

In America and Canada, the main reason that threatened the Brown bear was the segmentations of its habitat (Roads, highways…). Therefore, to save the brown bear’s habitat, people started to add more and more wildlife crossings to the roads and highways. These bridges allow animals, not only bears, to cross the highways to the other forests so that their habitat is not segmented and so that there are less roadkill. These bridges have helped enormously the species, and are still helping. (Grizzly bear connectivity mapping in the Canada–United States trans‐border region.)

Bear conservation 

Organizations helped the brown bears by keeping them healthy such as the Washington State University Bear Center. This center helps to provide information about the Grizzly Bear by many researchers. These researches do not include sedation or anaesthesia since the staff there is against it. They aim to train the bears with things they like (such as honey) so that they can be cooperative. The bears have succeeded immensely, and are surprisingly easy to train. e.g: the bears are trained to “lay down and present a hind foot to an awaiting researcher for blood collection” or even “open their mouths on command, paw or nose touch to different visual cues, and present their chest or flank for visual observation or palpation” .

On the other hand, the Yellowstone National Park has also given an immense help to the recovery of the Grizzly Bear. The video linked below shows how the population of the National Park had increased and why. People never thought that the population of the grizzly bear could ever recover due to its huge needs concerning the environment and its surroundings. But it is astonishing how the population grew thanks to monitoring the species. It is now common for tourists to see more than 1 bear in the park every time they come to visit, in comparison to before where the bear sightings were way more scarce.

200 years ago, there were more than 50,000 Brown Bears between the Pacific Ocean and the Great Plains.

In 1975, there were around 150 bears living in this park, however, after human intervention to save the species, there are now more than 700 bears in the Yellowstone conservation Park. Therefore we have made a remarkable change and increase in the population. (United States. National Park Service.)

Moreover, a key to their conservation would also be to reduce conflicts with the people, since most of the people are scared of them; they do not want them walking free around their houses. (United States. National Park Service.)

If we did this for other species that are on the verge of extinction it would most of the time work and change a lot of problems. Therefore, if you want to help the brown bear or another species, it would be an amazing idea to donate some money or to consider helping an organization or a national park for a few days or weeks. This would make a very appreciable difference.

Sources:

• “Grizzly bear connectivity mapping in the Canada–United States trans‐border region.” Proctor – 2015 – The Journal of Wildlife Management – Wiley Online Library. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Feb. 2017.
• “Ursus arctos .” Ursus arctos (Brown Bear, Grizzly Bear). N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Feb. 2017.
• “Washington State University.” Bear Center. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Feb. 2017.
• “Yellowstone Forever Institute.” Yellowstone Forever. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Feb. 2017.
• “Brown Bear – Threats.” WWF. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Feb. 2017.
• Wygameandfish. YouTube. YouTube, 14 May 2013. Web. 05 Feb. 2017.
• United States. National Park Service. “Grizzly Bears & the Endangered Species Act.” National Parks Service. U.S. Department of the Interior, n.d. Web. 07 Feb. 2017.