New study reveals complex relationships among grizzly bear activity, ecotourism, and salmon availability

A new study “Ecology of fear alters behaviour of grizzly bears exposed to bear-viewing ecotourism” in the journal Ecology finds that some bears will avoid ecotourists on multiple spatial and temporal scales, and can take multiple weeks after encounters to return to their baseline activity levels at the research sites. This surprising result, associated with a non-consumptive activity, requires some unpacking. Ultimately, it’s a good news story for an industry committed to evidence-based and sustainable practices.

The ‘ecology of fear’ concept in the scientific literature allows an understanding of how an animal’s perception of risk may influence its behaviour and use of habitat. Owing to a history of hunting and other harms by humans, it’s well-accepted that wildlife display a healthy fear of humans. It’s an evolved response to a mortality risk, and it’s expressed even in the context of harmless encounters (e.g. with hikers, mountain bikers). 

In any context, this perception of risk by wildlife often relates to habitat structure, the types and intensity of risk cues, as well as an animal’s previous experiences. This study specifically examined how habitat structure and varied risk cues (in the form of various levels of ecotourism influenced grizzly bear activity.

Given the increasing popularity of bear-viewing ecotourism, including their own Spirit Bear Lodge, the Kitasoo Xai’xais Nation was interested in the potential effects of bear-viewing on the bears in their territory. The closure of ecotourism due to COVID-19 in 2020 in the K’ootz/Khutze Conservancy (“Khutze”) on the central coast of BC provided an unprecedented opportunity to monitor bear activity with remote cameras in the absence of humans, and compare it with human activity in 2021 when ecotourism resumed. Bear viewing in Khutze is primarily boat based, with two small land based interpretive sites in the estuary. Owing to their commitment to evidence-based and sustainable practice, other ecotour operators agreed to participate by allowing researchers to track their presence, precise movement tracks (via GPS trackers) and group size. They also respected the half-watershed closures established as part of the research design. We are grateful for their involvement.  

The researchers found that grizzly bear activity in Khutze was influenced by the amount of human activity, habitat structure and salmon availability. We explain some key details below.

After accounting statistically for the variation in daily salmon abundance and other factors, the researchers detected a decrease in grizzly bear activity in 2021 across the remote camera array compared with the 2020 closure year. Within the 2021 ecotourism season bear activity also declined on days with more tourist activity. Finally, bears were more likely to be detected at sheltered, forested camera sites compared with those more exposed, such as the open estuaries where bear viewing usually occurs. 

The variable that had the largest influence on bear detection rates was the number of days since people had last been in the Khutze bear viewing areas. In other words, the researchers found a strong temporal lag in terms of time required for bear activity levels to return to baseline following exposure to humans. Accounting for salmon abundance and other factors that varied between years, it would take ~25 days with no people in the watershed for bears to return to their 2020 levels of activity, revealing that the effects of human presence extended beyond the time that ecotours occurred. This effect was ~7 times as important as variation in salmon biomass in predicting bear activity levels. In other words, bears appear to be more sensitive to people than they were to salmon. 

The study provided important insight not only to scientists but also ecotourism operators and managers. All parties agree that best practice policy and procedures benefit from evidence. 

“The closure in 2020 offered a really unique setting to observe bear activity when people weren’t present. It was really fascinating to see how sensitive these bears can be to even benign activity.” – Monica Short, study lead, Raincoast Applied Conservation Science Lab, University of Victoria

The various age-sex classes of bears (i.e., adult males, females with young, etc.) showed different responses to combinations of ecotourism levels and salmon biomass. When salmon levels were low, the number of people had little influence on the likelihood of a remote camera detection being an adult male. But when salmon biomass was high, increasing numbers of people were associated with a lower likelihood of a detection being an adult male. This suggests that perhaps when salmon availability is sufficient, adult males opt for alternate feeding areas outside of human activity. The opposite pattern was observed for females with young; when salmon levels were moderate or high, there was a positive association between the number of people and the likelihood of a detection being a female with young. Results from a complementary model presented in the research paper suggested that females with young are not increasing their activity in response to ecotourism, but rather simply may be the age-sex class that is least negatively influenced. 

This study provides valuable, site-specific information for managers within the Kitasoo Xai’xais Nation, the province, and beyond to implement measures to best manage ecotourism to benefit both bears and people. 

“Our Nation has always had the right and responsibility to care for our territory and today we are actively stewarding our lands, waters and resources. This includes conducting research to guide management direction for bear viewing. This initiative, led by our Nation in partnership with the Raincoast Applied Conservation Science Lab at the University of Victoria and supported by BC Parks, is a great example of how our Nation is working to protect wildlife while operating a sustainable ecotourism business. This type of research is rooted in our traditional values of reciprocity, respect and interconnectedness. It not only benefits the bears, but us as well, in ensuring that we are honouring our relationship with them and respecting their needs as best we can.” – Sierra Hall, Kitasoo Xai’xais Stewardship Authority.

Does this research suggest that ecotourism will negatively influence bears over the long-term and sweeping changes to management are required? 

Not in the view of researchers. At the broadest level, the research team emphasizes that the project focused on behavioural measures in one important watershed, not factors relating to survival or reproduction at a population level.  

Whereas it’s clear that there can be surprisingly pronounced effects (that persist for many days), there is broader context to consider. First, ecotourism occurs only in the accessible portions of a very few of the watersheds available to grizzlies. Second, the avoidance behaviour shown by grizzlies is generally consistent with that associated with other human activity typically considered benign (like hiking on popular trails). Third, the behaviour is a natural and important response by bears that underlies coexistence with humans. In an adaptive way, bears are free to use their agency to move to adjacent habitats when others don’t feel safe. Fortunately, in areas like the Khutze, other spaces and times without relatively intense human activity still abound. 

Most importantly, new insight from this research helps local managers – should they want to keep bear behaviour closer to ‘baseline’ levels without ecotourism – consider trade-offs between various management tools (i.e., the number of viewing days in a week/month, times in a day that bear viewing could be open/closed, group sizes and bear viewing durations), other associated uses and effects, and the sustainable economic activity and derived benefits that bear-viewing provides.  Those decisions are beyond the influence of researchers. The science merely provides important information into one side of this ecological and economic balancing act.