Dr. Michelle McLellan’s main research interest is the studying population dynamics of recovering and threatened large mammal populations. She works with the Wildlife Science Centre (WSC) to understand the implications of policy and recovery actions on populations and predator-prey dynamics. She also currently supports Okanagan Nation Alliance in their efforts to restore ecosystems and connectivity in their territory. Prior to this work she was the co-director of the Southwest BC grizzly bear project focusing on population recovery, habitat selection, and interpopulation connectivity.
MichelleMcLellan
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Dr. Lana Ciarniello is an independent scientist who has conducted research on American black bears and grizzly bears since 1993. She is currently the Principal Investigator for the Orphaned Grizzly Bear Rewilding Project, which is the only rehabilitation and release program for grizzly bears in North America. Lana believes in science-based management of bears to support human-bear coexistence. Her research interests focus on the interaction of humans and bears, particularly related to urban expansion and the recovery of listed populations.
The trappings of success: the critical role of social carrying capacity in fostering long-term human-grizzly bear coexistence promoting safe and functioning wildlife corridors
March 14, 2024 at 12 pm PT / 1 pm MT
Presenters
Dr. Lana Ciarniello, Human-Bear Conflict Expert Team Co-Chair, IUCN SSC BSG and North American Bear Expert Team, IUCN SSG BSG
Dr. Michelle McLellan, North American Bear Expert Team, IUCN SSG BSG
Wildlife corridors are more secure when human-wildlife conflicts can be reduced. Biologists Dr. Lana Ciarniello and Dr. Michelle McLellan, both with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Bear Specialist Group, will examine the success of coexistence strategies in an agricultural community that is critical to the recovery of southwestern BC’s five threatened grizzly bear populations, Pemberton Meadows. Bears are needed to gradually and naturally augment the adjacent small and struggling populations, highlighting the importance of using a multi-scaled approach that includes connectivity and long-term coexistence. They will discuss seasonal resource selection function models they developed to predict connectivity among core habitat and populations and on-site evaluations to identify corridors allowing bears to naturally move across the Meadow. They will explain how the corridor design was supported by proactive Bear Smart management that fosters human-bear coexistence as an antidote to habitat fragmentation by managing the “ecological traps.”
This talk will also discuss the critical role that social carrying capacity plays in grizzly bear recovery and the importance of preventing or resolving conflicts before residence tolerance for bears declines.
Featured Resources
Report: Bear Hazard Assessment for Pemberton Meadows, BC, by Lana M. Ciarniello, Ph.D., RPBio
