Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units Program: Montana Wildlife
Education, Research and Technical Assistance for Managing Our Natural Resources

The purpose of this proposal is to perform specific tasks in support of managing black bear populations and working toward recovery goals for the grizzly bear population in northwestern Montana via support for ongoing U.S. Geological Survey research efforts. Specifically, this proposal describes tasks in support of - providing information on the size and distribution of the black bear population in Glacier National Park and - developing and testing a web interface for a comprehensive database of grizzly bear information in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem (NCDE). This proposal identifies the following specific tasks to be accomplished by the University of Montana to enable the USGS to meet its goals and provide the anticipated products: 1) Test password protection and restricted access features of the database portal. 2) Test data entry, query, and report production functions. 3) Provide feedback to software developers. 4) Use black bear detection data derived from hair collection in GNP in 2004 in mark-recapture analyses to estimate population size in GNP. 5) Use occupancy modeling to determine relative density patterns. 6) Create relational database of black bear sampling points, detections, capture histories, mortalities, and genetic profiles in GNP.