Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem Grizzly Bear Population Monitoring Annual Report, 2012
Mace RD and Roberts LL. 2012. Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem Grizzly Bear Population Monitoring Annual Report, 2012. Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem Grizzly Bear Monitoring. Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks; Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem Grizzly Bear Monitoring Team. Kalispell, MT
Reports on annual population trend monitoring within the Northern Rockies, including Glacier National Park. A program to monitor the population trend of grizzly bears in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem (NCDE) of Montana was initiated in 2004. The goal of this program is to estimate population trend by monitoring the survival and reproductive rates of radioinstrumented female grizzly bears. In 2012, 9 females and 5 males were captured for trend monitoring. An additional 8 independent females and 30 independent males were captured in 2012, primarily for management purposes. In 2012, 100 individual bears were radio-monitored, 36 of which were trend females. Since 2004, independent aged female survival has remained near 0.930. COY survival rate was estimated to be 0.56 and yearling survival rate was estimated to be 0.760.We documented the stable age structure of grizzly bears in the NCDE, and the proportion of the entire population that resides inside Glacier National Park. COY litter sizes were calculated for both management and trend females. An unadjusted average of 2.00 COY/litter was estimated for management females, and an unadjusted average of 1.97 COY/litter was estimated for trend females. Several new verified grizzly bear observations were obtained in areas south of the NCDE in 2012. Twenty-two known or probable grizzly bear mortalities were tallied for 2012, 4 of which were outside the 10 mile NCDE buffer.
- Type
- Published Report
- Authors
- Mace, Richard; Roberts, Lori
- Date of Issue
- 2012
- Publisher
- Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks; Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem Grizzly Bear Monitoring Team
- Units
- CRCO , GLAC
- Keywords
- crown of the continent, Grizzly Bear, northern continental divide ecosystem, Population Monitoring, Population Trend, Ursos arctos, Wildlife Studies