Grizzly Bear Habitat Selection for Buffalo Berry as a Food Resource

Grizzly Bear Habitat Selection for Buffalo Berry as a Food Resource

18 cameras have been deployed on 9 permanent buffalo berry plots. These buffalo berry plots are used to better identify the trends in health and population dynamics of grizzly bears, by monitoring annual buffalo berry fruit production. At each site between 5 and 10 female buffalo berry plants have been chosen and permanently tagged. Two cameras are set up at each site on individual plants, to monitor the phenology and quantity of buffalo berries that are available for the grizzly bears as a food source. The cameras will also be used to identify when the bears are feeding on the buffalo berries and what other species are competing with the bears for these berries as a food source. The 18 camera traps will also be partnered with clustered, grizzly bear telemetry data that will be used to ground truth and identify what the bears were eating during the clusters. This ground truthing will be conducted during the period of time that buffalo berry are reaching ripeness.