Where the Land Can Support More Grizzly Bears

We used fifteen years of vegetation and ungulate field data to estimate carrying capacity for grizzly bears—a measure of the number of bears that area can support—in 60 watershed units in Alberta.

To help target management efforts, we filtered for units that have both a large difference between carrying capacity and number of resident bears and a high road density.

There are 11 watershed units where access management and road density reduction may aid in increasing grizzly bear numbers so that bears can take advantage of a food-rich area without high mortality risk.