LIVING WITH BEARS

I Hunting in Bear Country I Bears in Your Neighborhood I Bears at Your Campsite I Bears at Your Deer Feeder I
I Bears at Your Beehive I Bears at Your Crops or Livestock Pens I Bears and Roads I Bears and Garbage I
I Feeding Bears I Management of Nuisance Bear Behavior I Aversive Conditioning I Encounters with Bears I

Free access by humans to occupied bear habitat increases the chance of contact between man and bear. These contacts may lead to the harassment or destruction of bears under certain conditions. Managing the area and timing of access to bear habitat is one strategy for minimizing this occurrence.

On most privately owned land with black bear habitat, some type of access management program has already been implemented by the landowners or their lessees. For example, most properties are legally posted and patrolled to prevent trespass by unauthorized individuals. In some cases, access points to private property are controlled with a system of locked gates and limited-use roads. Access to abandoned roads is often further restricted with gates and other barriers such as trenches, mounded dirt, and felled trees. Landowners wanting to develop an access management plan for their property can use these same techniques to their advantage.

Access to publicly owned properties is usually addressed in operational plans developed by the responsible land-management agency. Each agency abides by its own set of policies and regulations, such as limitations on the use of off-road or all-terrain vehicles. Therefore, each should review its access management plans to determine how these can be adapted to maximize benefits to bears. Agencies should also develop and implement appropriate access management plans if none currently exist.

Bears are often killed by motor vehicles as the animals cross highways, especially on roads that traverse travel corridors historically used by bears. Highway and natural resource management agencies should work to identify these corridors and install overpasses or culverts under roadbeds. Drift fences can direct bears to culvert entrances and facilitate movement beneath the roadbed. In addition, management of vegetative cover can help reduce bear-vehicle collisions. Crossings may be reduced through removing vegetative cover from roadsides at more dangerous areas and increasing vegetative cover around underpasses to encourage use of these areas.

Collisions between bears and vehicles may also result in human injury or death. Some accidents could possibly be avoided if drivers were educated about the potential for bears to cross in particular areas. Informational billboards and brochures, bear crossing signs and reduced speed limits at appropriate locations could be used to alert drivers to the potential presence of bears along certain highways.