Fig 1.
Map of Sooke study area and camera trap locations.
Location of 54 camera traps used to sample black bear habitat use as measured by camera trap detection rates in and around the municipality of Sooke on Vancouver Island, BC, Canada. Other vegetation includes shrubs, herbs, wetlands, and shorelines outside of urban or agricultural land uses.
Table 1.
Black bear habitat use candidate models.
Table 2.
Black bear seasonal conflict probability candidate models.
Fig 2.
Graph of monthly black bear detection rate.
Monthly black bear detection rate from 54 camera traps sampled July 2018–2019 in Sooke, BC, Canada grouped seasonally. The detection rate accounts for time when camera traps were not active, with rate = (number of detections / number of active camera days) * number of days in the month. Seasons are spring: February-April, summer: May-July, autumn: August-October, and winter: November-January.
Fig 3.
Black bear habitat use model results.
Estimated effects of human and environmental variables on black bear habitat use as measured by camera trap detection rate in Sooke, BC, Canada. Variables are human, road, and trail density (including a quadratic variable for human density and interaction between human and trail density), distance-to-agriculture and -urban, enhanced vegetation index, elevation, and camera trap active days. Coefficients from best-supported zero-inflated negative binomial generalized linear mixed model of monthly detections from 54 camera traps sampled July 2018–2019 illustrated as mean and 95% confidence intervals. Predictor variables have been standardized to a mean of zero and standard deviation of one to allow for direct comparison.
Fig 4.
Black bear seasonal conflict probability model results.
Estimated effects of seasonal conflict probability and season on black bear habitat use as measured by camera trap detection rate in Sooke, BC, Canada. Coefficients from best-supported zero-inflated negative binomial generalized linear mixed model of monthly detections from 54 camera traps sampled July 2018–2019 illustrated as mean and 95% confidence intervals. Seasons are spring: February-April, summer: May-July, autumn: August-October, and winter: November-January. Predictor variables have been standardized to a mean of zero and standard deviation of one to allow for direct comparison.
Fig 5.
Graph of black bear detections by season vs. probability of conflict.
Plot of relationship between monthly black bear camera trap detections and the interaction between seasonal conflict probability and season (spring: February-April, summer: May-July, autumn: August-October, and winter: November-January) represented by mean and 95% confidence intervals.
Fig 6.
Graph of observed black bear nocturnal activity in urban and rural areas vs. expected.
Expected null distribution versus observed risk ratios for black bears nocturnality from urban and rural camera trap sites relative to wild sites. The risk ratio (RR) compares nighttime activity for bears detected in areas of high human disturbance (Xh, urban = blue, rural = yellow) with those in low disturbance (Xl, wild) areas using the equation Risk Ratio = ln(Xh/Xl), where 0 would mean no difference. Expected distribution was calculated using 1000 bootstrap iterations from data. Horizontal lines show the 95% Highest Posterior Density Intervals for the expected (null) distribution (solid lines) and 95% confidence intervals for the observed values (dashed lines).