Alex McInturff

Bear reintroduction has become a critical conservation strategy for many recovering species, but it has met with mixed success. While ecological models of habitat suitability have rapidly improved in sophistication, the role of social acceptance is still poorly understood, even though it determines the success or failure of bear conservation programs. It is well-recognized that human behaviors, attitudes, and values toward wildlife and management are as spatially diverse as ecological factors, but few methods and datasets exist to address this complexity. In this study, we developed a novel method to analyze and spatialize publicly available data that can be a resource for future bear conservation and coexistence efforts worldwide. The proposed reintroduction of grizzly bears (Ursus arctos) to the North Cascades Ecosystem (NCE) in Washington, USA has been mired in controversy for decades, so we analyzed public comments (n=5558) on this plan for argument themes and levels of support for reintroducing grizzlies. We created a spatially explicit model of support for reintroduction by selecting social predictors that aligned with discovered themes (n=91) such as safety concern and recreation inconvenience. The support model was overlaid with an integrated step selection model of predicted grizzly habitat usage to create a social-ecological suitability model (SESM) for grizzlies in the NCE. The model highlights areas of suitable space for grizzlies to inhabit, as well as areas for proactive management and conflict mitigation. The identification of projected areas of high habitat usage and low support assist managers’ and communities’ application of coexistence interventions like bear smart education, infrastructure improvements, or deterrents. This study advances SESMs as a multifaceted tool in wildlife management and species reintroductions, and demonstrates the promise of using place-based covariate selection in modeling dynamic human social preferences across space.