Safe and effective but unscheduled drug combinations are needed for wildlife immobilization in some jurisdictions. To this end, we evaluated a combination of nalbuphine HCl (40 mg/mL), medetomidine HCl (10 mg/mL), and azaperone tartrate (10 mg/mL)—referred to as NalMed-A (or NAM)—in 28 American black bears (Ursus americanus), captured during June to August 2014 as part of an ongoing study conducted in and around Durango, Colorado, USA. We effectively immobilized all bears; induction (mean ± SE) was 16.2 ± 0.9 minutes (n = 25) and reversal was 19 ± 1.6 minutes (n = 24). Advantages of NalMed-A included low delivery volume, good sedation quality, and effective reversal. Moreover, NalMed-A does not contain compounds regulated by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, making it a useful unscheduled immobilization combination. Based on these and subsequent field experiences, our dosing recommendations are 0.5–1 mL NalMed-A/45.5 kg estimated body mass (0.44–0.88 mg nalbuphine HCl/kg, 0.11–0.22 mg azaperone tartrate/kg, and 0.11–0.22 mg medetomidine HCl/kg), and 5 mg atipamezole HCl/mg medetomidine for antagonism.

Human–sloth bear (Melursus ursinus) conflict can be an important human safety issue where people and sloth bears co-exist. We characterized aspects of sloth bear attacks on humans using standardized surveys and interviews in Banaskantha, Sabarkantha, and Mehsana districts of North Gujarat, India. We interviewed 71 victims from 202 villages in the study area during 2008–2009; most attacks occurred during late monsoon (Oct) and early winter (Nov). Sloth bears typically attacked victims by charging, knocking them to the ground, and then rearing up on their hind legs. Most human injuries occurred on the arms (52%), legs (38%), and head (32%). Most victims were males (82%) traveling alone. We recommend education programs to reduce human injury through mitigation techniques. These efforts could include placing signs with information about sloth bear behavior and occurrence in the area and advising locals about when to enter forests, especially when alone, to reduce conflicts and facilitate coexistence of humans and sloth bears.

Brown bears (Ursus arctos) occasionally engage in geophagy, the act of purposefully ingesting lithogenic mineral substances. From 1999 to 2013, we collected samples from 4,619 brown bear scats from 3 regions of the Russian Far East (Kamchatka, Primorsky Krai, Sakhalin) in order to better understand geophagy in this species. Depending on region collected, soils were detected in 1–5.2% of samples. The greatest soil concentrations were found in scats from Sakhalin in August and September, the same months when Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.) play a dominant role in seasonal brown bear diets there. Of the 207 Sakhalin scats with soil content, nearly all (87%) also contained fish remains. A chemical analysis of samples suggested that the soils being purposefully consumed by brown bears are clay-like substances from the illuviated soil horizon—minerals that most likely aid the bears in preventing diarrhea by helping excrete excessive amounts of phosphorus inherent in a fish-heavy diet.

The Iranian black bear (Ursus thibetanus gedrosianus; IBB) is a critically endangered subspecies. The IBB needs connectivity to access seasonally available foods and to provide gene flow among populations in the mountains of Kerman, Hormozgan, and Sistan and Baluchistan provinces of Iran. We identified IBB cores to be used as termini for modelled corridors. We mapped 31 habitat cores based on 200 IBB presence points from studies during 2008–2013, and 70 presence points from our own observations of IBB footprints and scats in 2014. We used MaxEnt on 101 spatially independent presence points to map areas of high-quality habitat. The largest population patch (approx. 8,700 km²) covered 4 protected areas. We used least-cost modelling to model habitat corridors among 31 habitat cores. We considered a corridor locally important if it helped join nearby cores into a cluster that would support a large demographically and genetically vigorous population. We considered a corridor regionally important if it could connect the clusters united by local corridors. The most important local corridors were the corridors creating 4 clusters in the southeast of Iran. Also, we identified the 2 important regional corridors that could connect the 3 most important clusters. Although the density of roads in all habitat corridors was low (18.51 m/km²), roads crossed many important corridors. Conservation of main habitat cores and corridors for the IBB in southeastern Iran should be considered by the Department of Environment in Iran.

Recent advances in genetic approaches have facilitated genetic marking in capture–recapture (CR) experiments. Individuals can now be identified through non-invasive sampling and multi-locus genotyping instead of physical capture. In non-invasive studies where collection sites are used, detection depends on whether (1) an individual deposits a sample at the collection site, and (2) an individual can be genetically identified from the sample. Here we evaluate factors influencing detection of grizzly bears (Ursus arctos) at hair-sampling sites from 4 genetic CR projects (2006–2012) in British Columbia, Canada, and provide recommendations for maximizing detection in future studies. We found significant effects of trap type (bait site vs. rub object), sex, and season on the detection of grizzly bears. Bait-site detection was approximately 5-fold greater than detection at rub objects; and bait sites generally detected the sexes equally, whereas rub-tree detection was strongly male-biased. At rub objects, males had a 7-fold greater detection during the breeding season compared with females. Genotyping success increased with the number of hair follicles in the sample and decreased with the duration between trap checks. Rainfall was correlated with trap duration and was also negatively related to genotyping success. Samples with little genetic material (<2 guard hair, or <15 underfur) had low genotyping success and are best avoided, especially if samples with more follicles exist. Rub objects are an efficient sampling method but we caution investigators that these traps, unless deployed in large numbers, imperfectly detect female bears. The combined effect of trap type, sex, and season on a bear visiting a site, paired with the effects of hair quality, quantity, and sampling duration or rainfall on genotyping success, produced a range of detection spanning 2 orders of magnitude, highlighting the imperative for investigators to consider these factors for CR projects.

Despite a large body of literature that reports habitat use in non-urban areas, we lack a fundamental understanding of how American black bears (Ursus americanus; hereafter, black bear) use habitats in the urban–wildland interface in the eastern United States. This lack of information is problematic for bear managers in areas where bear populations are large and adjacent to urban areas. To better understand characteristics of urban–wildland habitat occupied by black bears, we conducted a study to understand habitat use of black bears in 7 urban areas in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. We fit data from 77 individual black bears with Global Positioning System–Global System for Mobile Communications collars during 2010–2012 in Johnstown, State College, and Scranton, Pennsylvania; northwestern New Jersey; and Beckley, Charleston, and Morgantown, West Virginia. We fit resource selection functions using generalized linear mixed models in R with different combinations of study area, human impact (human density and housing density), habitat (distance to roads, patch size), land cover (deciduous forest, evergreen forest, mixed forest, shrubland, grassland, pasture, barren, open-, low-, medium-, and high-intensity development, woody wetlands, and herbaceous wetlands), topographic (elevation and slope), and other variables (year, period of day [night or day], age and sex of the individual bear). Black bears used habitat similarly among study areas and between sexes. Black bears used forested slopes and riparian corridors in the urban–wildland interface. Black bears on the urban–wildland interface selected habitats similarly to wildland bears within the body of literature. Habitat selection was similar for males and females, regardless of study area, time of day, season, or year. Our results indicate that managers can employ the same suite of management tools to reduce human–bear conflicts at the urban–wildland interface that they use to deal with black bear conflicts in wildland areas.