That’s 15 to 40 more days out on the landscape looking for food. Based on current climate change projections, black bears of the year 2050 will be hibernating 15 to 40 days less than they are now. A 2017 study of 51 adult black bears found that for every 1☌ (about 1.8☏) increase in temperature, hibernation shortened by about a week. There are now some 900,000 American black bears ( Ursus americanus) across North America, up from a low of 200,000 before 1900, but well shy of the estimated 2 million before European colonisation and the hunting and habitat encroachment that came with it.īut climate change may be boosting bear conflict too. To some extent, this is a reflection of conservation success. In recent months, black bears have been making a ruckus in residential neighbourhoods everywhere from the suburbs of San Francisco to the commuter towns of New York City. The question doesn’t just apply in typical North American bear country. So how do we solve a problem like black bears in the backyard? When bears get too bold, it often doesn’t end well, mainly for them: between 20, in Colorado alone 775 black bears were euthanised.Īs we encroach further into their territory and climate change alters their hibernation habits, these types of run-ins will become more common. “It just seems they are a little more brazen this year,” Christy Bubenheim from the state’s parks and wildlife service recently told The Denver Post. What is out of the norm, though, is the nature of these run-ins. Between January and June of this year, there were more than 700 such encounters with black bears in Colorado – not hugely out of the norm in recent years.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |