Climate change may increase bear presence

CALGARY— If grizzly bears didn’t appear to be prominent in human-frequented spaces now, it’s definitely more likely they will be in the next 60 years — and human-caused climate change might be to blame, according to new research.

By 2080, an end-of-summer food staple for grizzlies in the Rocky Mountains — buffaloberries — will be more scarce in the weeks leading up to hibernation causing grizzlies to either not achieve a healthy body mass before winter or to go looking for food in human spaces, according to a study published Monday. That’s because the shrubs’ fruit could ripen three weeks sooner than usual. In the higher-altitude zones, the advancement of fruiting increases to 37 days.

“This is how climate change is going to impose itself on ecosystems. It’s not the big things that you would expect,” said University of Calgary Professor Greg McDermid, a co-author of the report.

In the study, researchers showed that plant life cycles that are controlled by heat — such as the cycles of blossoming flowers or fruiting shrubs — can be tracked by satellite remote sensing using 45 observation points within Alberta’s Rockies.

It also used data from “hot boxes” — where different climates were simulated while growing buffaloberry shrubs — to forecast how climate change might predict their life cycle patterns in the future. McDermid said that the warmer the temperature gets, the sooner the shrubs might begin to fruit. This could set off a chain reaction of events due to animals and other species not catching up soon enough.

McDermid predicts the early fruiting of the berry shrubs will change the behaviour of grizzlies, which are highly food-focused and will follow their noses to where food is available. It could result in more bears in human-occupied spaces, like campgrounds, where the animals often wouldn’t have been seen as much in the past.