Black Bears Return To Great Basin After 80-Year Absence

NEVADA -- Black bears are re-colonizing in the Great Basin in Nevada after being absent for more than 80 years, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society.

The nonprofit, along with the Nevada Department of Wildlife and the University of Nevada-Reno, said "unregulated hunting and conflicts with settlers' domestic livestock contributed to the bear’s local extirpation from the Great Basin in the early 1900s."

"As a result of (conservation) efforts, a once negative population growth rate for bears in urban-interface areas became an average annual growth rate of 16 percent for more than a decade, and re-colonization of historic ranges in the mountains of the Great Basin ensued. Once extirpated from their former range, more than 500 black bears have now recolonized these areas," a study by the nonprofit said.

“This study represents a great partnership between wildlife management and geneticists,” said Jason Malaney, lead author of the genetic study. “Wildlife managers deploy long-term field-surveys of black bears, collect tissue samples along the way,that are then used to better understand the complexities of re-colonization. This resuts in improved management outcomes.”

The authors of the study conclude that based on their results, black bears in the western Great Basin appear to currently maintain levels of connectivity between various mountain ranges that are sufficient to prevent genetic bottlenecks following recolonization.

”The recovery of large carnivores is relatively rare globally yet this is the goal of conservation," said conservation scientist Jon Beckmann. “Understanding the mode of recolonization and its genetic consequences is of broad interest in ecology and critical to successful conservation programs.”

--(Rich Pedroncelli, File/Associated Press)