Abstract
When large carnivores occupy peripheral human lands conflict with humans becomes inevitable, and the reduction of human-carnivore interactions must be the first consideration for those concerned with conflict mitigation. Studies designed to identify areas of high human-bear interaction are crucial for prioritizing management actions. Due to a surge in conflicts, against a background of social intolerance to wildlife and the prevalent use of lethal control throughout Japan, Asiatic black bears (Ursus thibetanus) are now threatened by high rates of mortality. There is an urgent need to reduce the frequency of human-bear encounters if bear populations are to be conserved. To this end, we estimated the habitats that relate to human-bear interactions by sex and season using resource selection functions (RSF). Significant seasonal differences in selection for and avoidance of areas by bears were estimated by distance-effect models with interaction terms of land cover and sex. Human-bear boundaries were delineated on the basis of defined bear-habitat edges in order to identify areas that are in most need of proactive management strategies. Asiatic black bears selected habitats in close proximity to forest edges, forest roads, rivers, and red pine and riparian forests during the peak conflict season and this was correctly predicted in our human-bear boundary maps. Our findings demonstrated that bears selected abandoned forests and agricultural lands, indicating that it should be possible to reduce animal use near human lands by restoring season-specific habitat in relatively remote areas. Habitat-based conflict mitigation may therefore provide a practical means of creating adequate separation between humans and these large carnivores.
Highlights
As human land domination has expanded, many species have disappeared from their primary range
We focused on habitat selection by Asiatic black bears near human landscapes to identify the key factors potentially associated with frequent contact and conflicts with humans
Investigation of spatial distance effects On the assumption that summer-specific habitat selection would be relevant to the frequency of human-bear interactions, we focused on seasonal differences in probability of bear selection in terms of distance from roads, rivers and forest edges using logistic regression based on used-available locations as the binary response variable
Summary
As human land domination has expanded, many species have disappeared from their primary range. Some carnivores still survive within or near anthropogenic landscapes [1]. The inevitable consequence of the proximity of wildlife habitats to human-dominated lands is an increase in undesirable human-wildlife interactions, which in many cases involving a large carnivore can be fatal for both. The conservation of large carnivores newly adapted to human landscapes is one of the greatest challenges facing local wildlife managers because of the difficulty of reconciling the ecological requirements of animals with the need to preserve human life and property. The reduction of human-carnivore interactions is critical to the sharing of finite land, and this only seems possible through a better understanding of the processes and patterns involved in the use of human landscapes by wildlife
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