| With climate change expected to be greatest in Polar Regions and anthropogenic disturbance increasing in the Arctic, current knowledge of how populations meet their resource needs is required. This is particularly true of the grizzly bears (Ursus arctos) of the Mackenzie Delta region, the starting point of an oil and gas pipeline. The goal of this thesis was to collect baseline information, describe space use, and identify foraging practices and important habitats before development proceeds.;I also examined home range size variability and found no difference in range size for males and females between the mating and post-mating seasons, which contradicted the 'roam-to-mate' hypothesis. Only females with cubs-of-the-year had smaller ranges. I found no difference in annual home range size between males and females with cubs ≥ 1 year old, which may be explained by the increased nutritional needs of the family group, presence of matrilineal lines and mothers accommodating young at weaning age. My results suggest that although sex and mating may influence home range size, exploitation of spatially disaggregated seasonally important habitat for foraging likely comes before mating. With future monitoring of grizzly bears during the development and production phases of oil and gas extraction and during the early phases of climate change, the results of this project may serve as a valuable baseline for wildlife managers to identify population-level changes over time.;I captured grizzly bears from 2003-06, collected tissue samples, and fitted bears with GPS radio-collars. I used stable isotope analysis of hair and nail to estimate delta13C and delta15N values and identified 3 different foraging profiles within the population. Next, I combined GPS data with VHF data from the 1970s to delineate subpopulation structure, an intermediate level of organization that is ecologically meaningful for management. I identified 4 subpopulations and used fixed-kernels to bound subpopulations and estimate relative probability of use by each population. I then estimated the mean probability of use of the projected pipeline route. Next, I examined patterns of fidelity and found that locations were spatially non-overlapping between years, which suggested that traditional definitions of home range may be too limited for Arctic grizzlies and that the multi-annual home range is a more useful measure. |
