Is hunting detrimental to bear populations? Or do harvests stimulate compensatory reproduction and decrease natural mortality among the survivors? When the literature was reviewed to evaluate support for the various sides of this controversy, data were found still inadequate for conclusions to be drawn. At best, available information can aid in distinguishing which additional data are most critical and which hypotheses are most likely to be heuristic. Among six U. arctos populations in North America, those with lowest proportions of adult males had highest reproductive potentials, and vice versa. Likewise, within Yellowstone National Park, there was a strong negative correlation between numbers of adult males during a given year vs. number of offspring. However, those populations with highest reproductive potentials were also in the best habitats. So whether the former relationships were due to (a) effects of adult males on conception and survivorship, or (b) a coincidental product of nutritional differences, must still be tested. For 2 black bear (U. americanus) populations in Idaho, 1 in good habitat which was hunted heavily and the other in poorer habitat that was hunted lightly, higher natality in the former was attributed not to hunting but to better nutrition. When trophy hunting was simulated on a formerly little-exploited population of black bears in Alberta, the natality rate was not obviously altered. Dispersal of a once seasonally aggregated population of grizzly bears was apparently followed by marked increase in cub survival, perhaps because of lowered exposure of cubs to aggression by older bears. However, evidence does not confirm the idea that depletion of mature males substantially increases survivorship of cubs or otherwise offsets losses due to hunting. In fact, under some circumstances, trophy hunting may indirectly increase cub mortality. Aside from this aspect and the possible impacts of inverse culling on gene pools, trophy hunting may be less detrimental to bears than to certain ungulates, where fully-adult males regulate aggression by adolescent males and serve other important social roles.
- Volume 4
- Issue
- Pages 337-349
- Publication Date 1 January 1980
- DOI 10.2307/3872889
- File Size 508.60 KB
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