Education programs for reducing American black bear–human conflict: indicators of success?

Goldilocks Revisited: Public Perceptions of Urban Bears in Northern British Columbia

“…Other studies found limited impacts of education in terms of changing the behavior of people. Gore et al (2008) found increased education about bears produced no changes in behavior such as the handling or storage of garbage, or keeping bird feeders or compost piles. Merkle, Krausman, and Booth (2011) found the provision of information and education did not diminish many activities creating attractants, such as having bird feeders, accessible pet food, composting, or cleaning barbeque grills, although 33% of residents did stop storing garbage in an accessible site.…”

“…Other research (Gore et al, 2008;Merkle et al, 2011) suggests that education initiatives do not necessarily moderate human behavior. In the Prince George study, participants reported a high level of self-assessed knowledge about bears, but it is uncertain whether this knowledge is due to educational initiatives.…”

“…Research suggests two important approaches to changing human responses to urban bears: (a) change the human behavior that creates inducements for bears to become threats or nuisances (e.g., eliminating accessible garbage or fruit), or (b) change human perceptions of bears in their communities (Don Carlos et al, 2009;Gore et al, 2008;Jochum et al, 2014;Merkle et al, 2013;Zajac et al, 2012). The first approach is dependent on the success of the second approach; people will change their behavior if they think it is worthwhile to preserve bears.…”

A conceptual model for the integration of social and ecological information to understand human-wildlife interactions

“…As human development has encroached on bear habitat, conflicts resulting from bears foraging for anthropogenic food near human development (e.g., garbage and fruit trees; Lewis et al, 2015) have increased (Hristienko and McDonald, 2007), becoming a major management challenge for wildlife agencies. Although wildlife agencies have invested significant resources in a variety of approaches to reduce conflicts, such as translocation, education, and harvest, these efforts have generally yielded limited success in reducing conflicts in residential settings (Gore et al, 2006b;Treves et al, 2010;BaruchMordo et al, 2011). Investigators recognize that both ecological and social factors contribute to human-bear conflicts (Baruch-Mordo et al, 2009), yet few studies have attempted to integrate both types of information to guide management.…”

Impacts d'un site de nourrissage à des fins d'observation sur l'utilisation de l'espace et la sélection de l'habitat de l'ours noir (Ursus americanus) en forêt boréale /

“…Plusieurs organisations gouvernementales responsables de l'aménagement de la faune en Amérique du Nord se sont intéressées aux solutions permettant de limiter l'augmentation des conflits ours -humains, de manière à assurer la sécurité de la population tout en minimisant les relations conflictuelles (Spencer et al 2007). Certains auteurs ont concentré leurs efforts vers le développement de modèle permettant de prédire les zones susceptibles de subir la déprédation par l'ours (Merkle et al 2011a), et l'évaluation de l'efficacité de différentes méthodes pour sensibiliser le public (Gore et al 2006;Greenleaf et al 2009;Merkle et al 2011b) ou pour contrôler les ours (Linnell et al 1997;Landriault et al 2009;Mazur2010). Rogers 1989;Spencer et al 2007).…”