Wildlife Society Bulletin 39(2):334–340; 2015; DOI: 10.1002/wsb.

526

Original Article

Evaluation of Translocation of Black Bears

Involved in Human–Bear Conflicts in
South-Central Colorado
MAT W. ALLDREDGE,1 Colorado Parks and Wildlife, 317 W Prospect Road, Fort Collins, CO 80526, USA
DANIEL P. WALSH,2 Colorado Parks and Wildlife, 317 W Prospect Road, Fort Collins, CO 80526, USA
LINDA L. SWEANOR, Colorado Parks and Wildlife, 2300 South Townsend Avenue, Montrose, CO 81401, USA
ROBERT B. DAVIES, Colorado Parks and Wildlife, 317 W Prospect Road, Fort Collins, CO 80526, USA
AL TRUJILLO, Colorado Parks and Wildlife, 600 Reservoir Road, Pueblo, CO 81005, USA

ABSTRACT From 1995 to 1997, black bears (Ursus americanus) involved in conflicts with humans in
southeastern Colorado, USA, were radiocollared, translocated, and monitored by the Colorado Division of
Wildlife to evaluate translocation as a management tool for problem black bears. Specific objectives were to 1)
determine postrelease movement patterns of relocated black bears, and 2) estimate cumulative incidence and
survival functions. Subadults did not move as far after translocation as adults and less frequently oriented
toward the capture site (29% of subad vs. 51% of ad). No subadults returned to the vicinity of capture, whereas
33% of adults did. We used a cause-specific hazards model with a constant age effect across the cause-specific
hazards to estimate annual survival rate for translocated adult bears (0.50, 95% credible interval CI ¼ 0.36–
0.65) and for subadult bears (0.28, 95% CI ¼ 0.12–0.48). The annual probability of dying due to repeat
conflict behavior was slightly lower (0.22 [95% CI ¼ 0.13–0.33] and 0.32 [95% CI ¼ 0.19–0.47]) for adults
and subadults, respectively, compared with nonconflict mortalities (0.28 [95% CI ¼ 0.17–0.40] and 0.40
[95% CI ¼ 0.25–0.56]). Based on bears that were not involved in known repeat human–bear conflicts,
translocation success was 0.64 (95% CI ¼ 0.49–0.78) and 0.58 (95% CI ¼ 0.42–0.73) for adults and
subadults, respectively. Translocation of problem bears had mixed success relative to repeat nuisance activity
in Colorado, but should remain a viable management option. Managers should make decisions on the
appropriateness of translocation based on the characteristics of the bear, identification of an adequate release
site, potential effect of the translocation on the release-site bear population, and other available options.
Ó 2015 The Wildlife Society.

KEY WORDS black bear, cause-specific mortality, Colorado, conflict, homing, survival, translocation, Ursus americanus.

Human–bear conflicts have been increasing throughout
North America as bear populations have expanded and
human populations have expanded into black bear (Ursus
americanus) habitat (Beckmann et al. 2008). With increasing
conflicts there is a growing need for evaluating the
effectiveness of the various tools used to manage these
negative human–bear interactions. This is particularly true in
Colorado, USA, where black bear damage claims and
human–bear conflicts have significantly increased (Colorado
Division of Wildlife [CDOW], unpublished data). To deal
with these issues in 1994, CDOW outlined procedures for
managing black bear conflicts to capture, mark with ear tags
and lip tattoos, and translocate a bear the first time it was
involved in a human–bear conflict. However, if the bear
Received: 2 October 2013; Accepted: 9 November 2014
Published: 3 March 2015
1
E-mail: mat.alldredge@state.co.us
2
Present address: United States Geological Survey, National Wildlife
Health Center, 6006 Schroeder Road, Madison, WI 53711, USA
posed an immediate threat to human safety, the bear was to
be euthanized. This policy also directed that any marked bear
captured after a second human–bear conflict should be
euthanized. In South-central Colorado alone, 196 black
bears were translocated by CDOW during 1985–1993
because of human–bear conflicts. The fates of 37% of the
196 translocated black bears were known (including 11%
that were destroyed for repeat conflicts; CDOW, unpub-
lished data). Because fates for the majority of translocated
bears were not known, CDOW could not ascertain
the effectiveness of translocation as a conflict management
tool.
Therefore the purpose of our study was to evaluate the
effectiveness of translocations as a tool for reducing human–
bear conflicts, and to obtain insight into the impacts of
translocation on human–bear conflicts and bear mortality
to inform conflict policy. Specifically, we radiocollared
and monitored translocated bears involved in human–
bear conflicts in South-central Colorado. Our objectives
were to estimate 1) postrelease movement patterns of
relocated black bears, and 2) estimate cumulative incidence

334 Wildlife Society Bulletin  39(2)

and survival functions for adult and subadult bears to
determine the probability of a bear dying as a result of
a human–bear conflict after translocation. We define
translocation success as a translocated bear either surviving
to the end of the study period without further conflict
or dying due to any cause not associated with a human–
bear conflict.
STUDY AREA
Source and release areas for translocated bears included the
central and southern Rocky Mountains of Colorado east of
the Sangre de Cristo and Culebra mountain ranges. Most
bears were caught in the vicinity of Colorado Springs and
south to the Colorado–New Mexico state line, and west from
Interstate 25 to the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. However, 1
bear was captured as far north as the town of Boulder. Most
release sites were south of U.S. Highway 50, east of the
Sangre de Cristo–Culebra ranges, and west of Interstate
Highway 25. The CDOW attempted to translocate bears as
far as possible from capture sites while remaining within the
boundaries of the management area, and to release bears in
areas where bears had a low likelihood of causing similar
conflict (e.g., a bear feeding on fruit trees would be
translocated to an area with no known orchards). Policy
dictated that bears were released within the management
area in which they were captured. Release sites were rotated
so that all bears were not released in 1 particular area. Areas
deemed appropriate for translocation generally included
forested areas on public land.
METHODS
Capture, Handling, and Translocation
We defined 3 human–bear conflict categories for bears
targeted for translocation:
1) Nuisance: a bear that posed an immediate threat to
or damaged property, but did not threaten public
safety;
2) Depredating: a bear that had killed hoofed livestock;
3) Dangerous location: a bear that posed a potential threat
to human safety because of location, but not behavior.
All conflict bears that were caught a second time, and any
bears that threatened human safety were euthanized by
CDOW.
We captured conflict bears during May and October each
year during 1995–1997. The greatest capture effort occurred
in 1995, when 51 of 66 (77%) conflict bears were captured
and translocated. Most (85%) bears were captured in baited
culvert traps; the rest were chemically immobilized via dart
gun while resting in trees. Bears were immobilized with a 2:1
mixture of ketamine hydrochloride (KHCl) and xylazine
hydrochloride dosed at approximately 4.4 mg KHCl per kg
body weight or with Telazol1 (Fort Dodge Animal Health,
Fort Dodge, IA) dosed at 5–7 mg/kg. Bears were aged as
subadults or adults based on tooth characteristics (LeCount
1986).
Alldredge et al.  Translocation of Black Bears
We marked bears with color-coded Allflex1 (Allflex USA
Inc., DFW Airport, TX) and/or Ritchey (Brighton, CO) ear
tags and tattooed bears on 1 or both sides of the inside upper
lip. We fitted adults with very high frequency radiocollars
having 8-hr mortality sensors (Model 9; Advanced
Telemetry Systems, Isanti, MN). We fitted subadults with
expandable collars with 4-hr mortality sensors (Model
WL300-MORC; Ursus Technologies, Williamsburg, VA).
Bears were translocated by truck in culvert traps to release
sites <48 hr after capture. Bears were provided with water
during transport and were released without supplemental
food.
Monitoring
We monitored radiocollared bears on a weekly basis from
fixed-winged aircraft (Cessna 185; Cessna Aircraft Compa-
ny, Wichita, KS) and opportunistically from the ground
during May–October each year, 1995–1997. We selected
this monitoring period because most bears in West-central
Colorado were in winter dens from mid-November through
mid-April, with females hibernating for a longer period than
males (Beck 1991). We investigated all mortalities and, if
possible, determined cause of death. Although active
monitoring of radiocollared bears concluded in Octo-
ber 1997, human-related mortalities of bears that occurred
after this date were included in the cause-specific mortality
analysis as these were reported.
Data Analysis
Directional orientation and distance traveled.—We defined
initial movement as a bear’s first movement or known
location away from its release site followed by continued
directional movement (Fritts et al. 1984, Ruth et al. 1998).
We defined an endpoint as the bear’s last location due to
death, collar drop-off, loss of radiotelemetry contact, or its
last location at the end of study.
We calculated all distances and azimuths from Universal
Transverse Mercator coordinates of bear locations (White
and Garrott 1990). We analyzed directional data using
procedures for circular statistics (Batschelet 1981, Zar 1984).
We used a Watson 1-sample U 2-test to test azimuth
distributions for uniformity. Because bears were captured
and released at various locations within South-central
Colorado, we standardized the home direction of each bear
at 08 for all examinations of directional movement and homing
behavior. We tested differences in movements among subadult
and adult bears using the Wilcoxon rank-sum test (Conover
and Iman 1981, Zar 1984). Because few female bears were
translocated, differences between male and female movements
were not analyzed. We assumed bears exhibited directional
orientation to capture site if the 95% confidence interval for
endpoint azimuths included the hypothesized homing
direction of 08 (Zar 1984:445, White and Garrott 1990).
We also assumed individual bears whose endpoints were
within 22.58 of the home direction were exhibiting homing
behavior (Rogers 1986). Bears that returned to within 7 km (F)
or 15 km (M) of their original capture site at some time after
release were considered to have returned home. Distances were
based on the average home-range diameters of adult male and
335
female bears in West-central Colorado (Beck 1991), assuming
circular home ranges.
Mortality causes and survival.—We used Bayesian statisti-
cal inference to estimate the cumulative incidence or cause-
specific mortality function for subadult and adult radio-
collared bears (Heisey and Patterson 2006, Heisey 2009).
We estimated the hazard rate for each age class of bears in 2
mortality classes (DWMLAND and HRPU). The
DWMLAND class represented bears that were killed by
District Wildlife Managers or by landowners because of
second strike behaviors, indicating continued conflict with
humans and therefore an unsuccessful translocation. The
HRPU class represented bear mortalities associated with
hunting, road kill, poaching, or unknown causes, which were
indicative of successful translocation because the mortality was
not associated with undesirable behaviors by the bear. We
treated time of death (T) as a continuous random variable,
which was only observed to an interval (i.e., interval-censored)
and therefore was not known exactly. Our analyses also
accounted for right-censoring (e.g., collar failure). We used the
techniques described by Heisey and Patterson (2006) to
estimate the hazard rates, survival function, S(u), and the
cumulative incidence function for both of our mortality
sources; however, our analysis as previously mentioned was
conducted within a Bayesian framework. The data likelihood
in our analysis was as follows:
( )
Q Y
Y n Xri   Thirteen bears dropped their collars prior to the study’s
Lðg je ; r ; s Þ / exp  exp g^ k þ bk  agei ð1Þ
( k¼1 i¼1 " j¼ei
#)!
Xsi  
 1  exp  exp g^ k þ bk  agei
j¼r i
where ei is the day the ith of n bears was radiocollared, ri is
the day the ith bear was last known alive, si is the first day ith
Zt
 
^
bear was known dead, g^ k ¼ log L k with Lk ¼ hk ðuÞd u,
t1
which approximates the unit cumulative kth hazard of Q
different hazards using a step function, and bk ¼ the additive
effect of age for the kth hazard, where agei is an indicator
variable for adult bears. In our analysis, a unit represents a
day. It is important to note that in the likelihood
contribution for the kth mortality source, if an animal dies
from a cause other than the kth mortality source, it is treated
as a censoring event (Heisey 2009).
We evaluated 3 different models: 1) a model with hazard-
specific age effects, 2) a model with a constant age effect
across the cause-specific hazards (i.e., bk ¼ b), and 3) a model
with no age effect included. We used Deviance Information
Criterion (DIC) to select the model best supported by the
evidence in the data (Burnham and Anderson 2002,
Spiegelhalter et al. 2002).
To examine the impact of the prior distribution choice and
because of a lack of prior knowledge we used 2 diffuse priors
for each of the gk parameters: 1) Uniform (25, 25) and 2)
Normal (0, 10,000); however, we did not see an impact of
prior choice on resulting posterior estimates, and so we only
336
report posterior estimates generated using the Uniform
(25, 25) distribution. We used a Normal (0, 1,000) prior for
the b parameter. We used 3 chains with overdispersed
starting values in the Markov chain Monte Carlo simu-
lations, and monitored trace and autocorrelation plots as well
as the Brooks, Gelman, and Rubin diagnostics to assess
convergence (Brooks and Gelman 1998, Gelman et al. 2004).
After a burn-in period of 50,000, we made inference using
50,000 samples from the posterior density, and examined
posterior means and compared their distributions between
the 2 mortality source classes described previously. Lastly, we
generated graphical plots of the cumulative incidence and
cause-specific mortality functions and associated measures of
precision. All analyses were conducted using WinBUGS
(Lunn et al. 2000, Heisey 2009), and results were
summarized in Program R (R Core Team 2013) using the
Coda package (Plummer et al. 2006).
RESULTS
During 1995–1997, 66 conflict bears (34 ad M, 9 ad F, 18
subad M, and 5 subad F) were translocated in South-central
Colorado. Most bears (59%) were captured and translocated
in July and August (Fig. 1). These bears were categorized as
nuisance (n ¼ 44), depredation (n ¼ 5), and dangerous
location (n ¼ 16).
Relocations postrelease ranged from 2 to 68 locations/bear.
conclusion and final fates could not be determined; 3 collars
dropped the same year the bear was collared, whereas 10
collars dropped during the second or third year of
monitoring. Radio contact with another 8 bears was lost
during the same year the bear was released (n ¼ 5) or during
the subsequent 2 years (n ¼ 3). Fates of 6 bears were
determined poststudy (Table 1): 4 died in 1998, 1 died in
2000, and 1 died in 2001. Three of these 6 bears dropped
radiocollars during the study and were subsequently
identified from ear tags or tattoos.
Directional Orientation and Distance Traveled
Initial movements of translocated bears from their release
sites were detected 1–39 days after release along azimuths of
3–3568 with respect to the capture site. Initial movement
directions for subadults (n ¼ 19) were not significantly
different from the uniform distribution (U 2 ¼ 0.138,
P ¼ 0.14), while initial movement directions for adults
(n ¼ 40) were significantly different from the uniform
distribution (U 2 ¼ 0.231, P ¼ 0.02) and directed toward
capture site (x ¼ 10.58  458).
Azimuths from the release site to the endpoint were in all
directions with respect to the capture site ranging from 18 to
3518 for subadults (n ¼ 17) and 08 to 3568 for adults (n ¼ 35).
Endpoint directions for subadults were not significantly
different from the uniform distribution (U 2 ¼ 0.091,
P ¼ 0.36), whereas endpoint directions for adults were
significantly different (U 2 ¼ 0.792, P < 0.001), with a mean
angle toward the capture site (88  228). The endpoints of 5
subadults (29%) and 18 adults (51%) were within 22.58 of the
home direction, indicating homing behavior in those bears.
Wildlife Society Bulletin  39(2)
Figure 1. Month of capture for 66 conflict black bears in South-central Colorado, USA, 1995–1997.

Endpoints could be determined for 52 bears (17 subad, 35 adults returned to capture site and survived 1 summer or to
ad). Subadults were translocated 78–181 km (x ¼ 119  14 the end of the study (unless legally killed by a hunter) without
km), and adults were translocated 25–213 km (x ¼ 116  10 committing a second strike offense during the study period.
km) from capture to release sites. Subadults did not move as Repeat conflict behavior was documented in 16 trans-
far after translocation (34  12 km) as did adults (x ¼ 77 located bears during the study (Table 1). Of these bears, the 6
 16 km; t ¼ 1.95, P ¼ 0.028). Average distance from subadults lived 74  100 days postrelease, whereas 10 adults
capture site to endpoint was 101  19 km for subadults lived 72  58 days postrelease. Ten of the 16 bears (63%)
and 66.9  22 km for adults. were killed during July and August.
Out of 18 adult bears that oriented toward capture site, 14 We could classify both the first and second strike offenses
(13 M, 1 F) returned home. This comprised 33% of 43 for 12 of these 16 bears: 6 committed repeat nuisance activity,
translocated adults or 40% of 35 adult bears for which an 1 male repeated killing domestic animals, and 5 exhibited a
endpoint was determined. Although 5 subadults oriented different conflict behavior during second strikes. Of the 5
toward capture site, no subadults returned to the capture site. bears exhibiting different behaviors, 3 were captured because
Nine bears returned home within 34  4.2 days in the same of nuisance activity and were subsequently killed for
summer season, and 5 bears (including the 1 F) hibernated depredating on livestock or other domestic animals. The
prior to returning home. other 2 were originally captured because of dangerous
Mortality Causes and Survival Rates location or depredating behavior (on livestock or other
Of the 66 translocated bears, 29 survived 1 summer season animals) and later killed for nuisance or dangerous behavior.
and were not killed for a second human–bear conflict during Three other translocated bears were killed for repeat conflict
the study, and 4 bears were legally killed by hunters during behavior poststudy: 2 bears committed repeat nuisance
the same year the bears were translocated (Table 1). Twelve activity, and 1 bear was captured for nuisance activity and
then killed for depredating.
Using the above mortality information in our cause-specific
Table 1. Causes of mortality for 44 translocated black bears involved in
analysis, we found evidence that translocated adult bears had
conflicts with humans in South-central Colorado, USA, during (1995– lower cause-specific hazard rates than subadults, and this age
1997) the study and after (1998–2001) the study’s conclusion.a effect was constant across the cause-specific hazards (DIC
During study Poststudy ¼ 560). The estimated reduction in the hazard rate for adult
compared with subadult bears was 0.64 (95% credible
Mortality cause Ad Subad Ad Subad Total
interval CI ¼ 1.31–0.051); however, this age effect is only
Second strike 10 (2) 6 3 (1) 0 19
moderately supported by the data as demonstrated by the
Harvest 5 (1) 3 2 0 10
Illegal kill 5 3 1 (1) 0 9 posterior distribution (Fig. 2), which yielded a 3.4%
Vehicle 2 0 0 0 2 probability that the age effect 0. Additionally, the model
Unknown cause 1 2 0 0 3 lacking an age effect had a DDIC value of 1.5 when
Died at capture 0 1 0 0 1
Total 23 15 6 0 44
compared with the top model containing a constant age
effect, which also indicated only moderate support for the age
a
The causes of death for 5 bears that returned home are indicated in effect. The model with hazard-specific age effects had the
parenthesis. largest DIC ¼ 562, and was considered noncompetitive.

Alldredge et al.  Translocation of Black Bears 337


Figure 2. Posterior distribution of the effect of being an adult on the hazard
rate for translocated black bears involved in conflicts with humans in South-
central Colorado, USA, 1995–1997.
Because our 2 competing models only differed by the age
effect, we used the estimated hazard rates from the constant
age-effect model, which had the lowest DIC, to estimate the
cumulative survival and incidence functions. Reported
estimates were posterior mean estimates drawn from Markov
chains that appeared to have converged and were well-mixed
based on standard diagnostic tests. Posttranslocation
cumulative survival rates decreased most rapidly during
the first year following translocation for both adults and
subadults (Fig. 3). Estimated annual survival was 0.50 (95%
CI ¼ 0.36–0.65) and 0.28 (95% CI ¼ 0.12–0.48) for adult
and subadult bears, respectively. We did not include
estimates of survival past the cessation of monitoring of
marked bears because such estimates would be biased because
they only reflect known mortalities due to hunting or
Figure 3. Cumulative survival curve (solid lines) and associated 95%
credible intervals (dashed lines) for adult (black lines) and subadult (gray
lines) black bears involved in conflicts with humans in South-central
Colorado, USA, that were relocated during 1995–1997.
338
nuisance behavior and do not account for unknown
mortalities.
The cumulative incidence functions associated with both
DWMLAND and HRPU followed similar patterns, with
initial mortality rates being high and declining for both
subadult and adult conflict bears (Fig. 4). Although not
statistically significant, the estimated mortality rate for the
DWMLAND category was consistently lower than the
HRPU category for both age classes (Fig. 4). On an annual
basis, the probability of a translocated bear being killed after
another conflict incident was 0.22 (95% CI ¼ 0.13–0.33) and
0.32 (95% CI ¼ 0.19–0.47) for adults and subadults,
respectively. Annual probability of dying from a cause
unrelated to a conflict situation was 0.28 (95% CI ¼ 0.17–
0.40) and 0.40 (95% CI ¼ 0.25–0.56) for adult and subadult
bears, respectively. Using the cumulative incidence and
survival functions, we estimated the probability of successful
translocation across 3 seasons (the length of our study; i.e.,
surviving or dying from HRPU) as 0.64 (95% CI ¼ 0.49–
0.78) and 0.58 (95% CI ¼ 0.42–0.73) for adults and
subadults, respectively.
DISCUSSION
Black bears are probably the most frequently translocated
carnivores (Linnell et al. 1997), generally because of nuisance
or depredation behavior. Objectives of conflict bear
translocation may be to curtail the undesirable behavior
without killing the animal and result in the animal’s
subsequent survival and reproduction. From the agency
perspective, successful translocation is maintaining the
conflict bear in the population without having to invest
future manpower or money in the individual.
Candidates for Translocation
Successful establishment of home ranges by conflict bears at
the translocation site appears to be influenced by the age of
the bear at the time of translocation and perhaps its gender.
In South-central Colorado, compared with adults, subadults
were less likely to orient toward the original capture site,
moved shorter distances from release sites, and did not return
to capture sites. Other studies (Rogers 1986, Landriault
1998) also found subadults, most notably males, had a lower
rate of return to capture sites. Most male bears disperse as
subadults (between 2–4 year of age) prior to establishing
home ranges. Consequently, translocated subadult males
may not exhibit homing tendencies because their home
ranges have not been established (Rogers 1986, Landriault
1998). Adult bears appear to be strongly motivated to home,
probably because of the fitness benefits of the home range
(Beeman and Pelton 1976).
Translocated Bear Survival
Annual survival of translocated bears was lower in this study
compared with those of a population in West-central
Colorado that exceeded 0.70 (Beck 1991); however, our
study population had greater potential sources of mortality,
including agency and landowner mortality associated with
repeated conflict. Survival for translocated bears was
influenced by high levels of human-induced mortality,
Wildlife Society Bulletin  39(2)
Figure 4. Cumulative incidence and cause-specific mortality functions (solid lines) and associated 95% credible intervals (dashed lines) for adult (darker
shading) and subadult (lighter shading) conflict black bears in South-central Colorado, USA, that were relocated during 1995–1997. Agency- and landowner-
associated mortality (DWMLAND) relates to bears in repeated conflict behavior with humans (A), whereas other mortality (HRPU) relates to bears that were
not involved in repeated conflict behavior (B).
because natural mortality was 5% of known deaths.
Translocated bears which were killed because of repeat
human–bear conflicts, were killed away from point of
capture, suggesting that translocations can simply move
human–bear conflicts to other locations. However, the
posterior distributions of the cumulative incidence functions
clearly indicated that the probability of dying from repeat
human–bear conflicts was not the primary source of mortality
for translocated bears. Other causes of mortality included
legal harvest by hunters, suggesting translocation can also be
useful for increasing recreational opportunity while reducing
nuisance activity (Fies et al. 1987). Similarly, other studies
have indicated that translocation does not greatly increase
natural mortality among bears 2 years old, and that human-
induced mortality, particularly hunting, is the major source
of mortality of adult black bears (Rogers 1986).
Factors Affecting Translocation Success
Using our definition of success, nearly two-thirds and over half
of adult and subadult bears, respectively, were successfully
translocated during our study. Success of translocation in black
bears is often <50% (McArthur 1981, Rogers 1986), although
this is somewhat determined by how success is defined.
Massopust and Anderson (1984) found bears translocated for
depredation or nuisance behavior often resumed those
behaviors. However, Fies et al. (1987) and McLaughlin
et al. (1981) found recurring nuisance behavior in only 3–15%
of translocated bears. The rate at which secondary conflicts
occur is probably determined by conflict potential at the release
site and the area through which individual bears travel after
release. Fies et al. (1987) found that only 10.1% of bears
translocated in Virginia, USA, were recaptured for repeat
nuisance behavior. Capture and handling of bears prior to
translocation may also provide a level of aversive conditioning,
especially if a bear is captured the first time it is involved in
nuisance activity (Clark et al. 2002).
Alldredge et al.  Translocation of Black Bears
The actual characteristics of the release site may be the most
important determinant of translocation success (Beeman and
Pelton 1976). Unfortunately, little evaluation of release sites
typically occurs (Linnell et al. 1997). The availability of
natural food at the release site may be an important factor,
but it has not been adequately examined in translocation
studies (McArthur 1981).
Additionally, there has been little examination of the effect
of translocation on the bear population within the release
area. Rogers (1986) concluded that because translocated
bears typically leave release sites within a few days and move
widely, food competition between translocated and resident
bears should be no greater than between residents and
dispersers or migrants. Although the spread of disease may
be of concern (Griffith and Scott 1993), it has not been
examined in translocated bears. Disruption of local genetic
adaptations is also a concern in many animal translocations
(Griffith and Scott 1993); however, because subadult bears
can disperse long distances (>90 km; Rogers 1986), most
within-state translocations probably have limited effects on
local genetic adaptations.
MANAGEMENT IMPLICATIONS
Translocation of problem bears is a viable management tool,
and should be considered with regard to management goals,
agency resources, and bear population objectives. There
exists a reasonable chance that translocation of bears will
produce desired results in that more than half the nuisance
behavior can be eliminated without killing the bear.
Moreover, public perception of translocation is likely to be
more favorable than immediately euthanizing conflict bears.
Dealing with nuisance bears can require significant agency
resources, which may result in utilizing close and convenient
release sites. However, careful consideration and planning of
appropriate release sites will likely lead to increased
translocation success. Factors to consider are quality of
339
bear habitat, proximity to human development, and
historical bear harvest rates. Placing bears in high-quality
habitat, far from humans and in areas with reduced
populations resulting from hunting pressure may increase
translocation success and justify agency resources.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This project was funded by Colorado Division of Wildlife
Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Project W-153-R and
Colorado Division of Wildlife game cash funds. We thank
T. D. I. Beck, J. Carsella, D. Clippinger, K. Kempf, C. Smith,
and R. Velarde, of the Colorado Division of Wildlife, for field
support and pilots J. Olterman and D. Younkin of the
Colorado Division of Wildlife for obtaining aerial locations of
radiocollared black bears. T. D. I. Beck and D. Freddy provided
helpful insights and comments on earlier drafts of this
manuscript. We thank the AE and 2 reviewers who provided
helpful comments and suggestions on this manuscript.
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Associate Editor: Garshelis.
Wildlife Society Bulletin  39(2)