The lives of salmon and bears in B.C. are inextricably linked and new research by scientists at Raincoast Conservation and the University of Victoria underlines the importance of conservation managers looking at entire ecosystems in order to keep both species healthy.
The wide-ranging study of the amount of salmon eaten by bears in different areas was conducted by a group led by Megan Adams, Hakai-Raincoast scholar and PhD candidate at UVic and was published today in the peer-reviewed journal Ecosphere.
Researchers looked at more than 1,400 hair samples from 886 grizzly and black bears, which ranged over almost 700,000 square (Read more…) of B.C. from 1995 to 2014.
The huge database has produced a pattern showing salmon hotspots and demonstrating how the health of bears improves and population density increases when there is an abundance of salmon and declines when salmon runs fail — illustrated by bear deaths on the Central Coast when sockeye runs crashed.