Blue Bird houses and Wood Duck houses we are all used to seeing and accepting as our way of helping these species recover from our altering their habitat,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Will the Black Bears on Vancouver Island respond in kind to a conservation program designed to give them additional options to overwinter in?.......The reason for this man-made intervention is due to the fact that hydroelectric facility flooding in the area has removed large trees that bears would have used to make dens.............. This loss of habitat could be exponentially destructive since generations of bears often reuse existing tree dens...............Biologists are lining the 3 experimental plastic culverts with tree boughs and scents to attract the attention of the bears...........Biologists feel it will likely take up to 5 years to determine if these artificial resting sites will compensate for the land destruction caused by the Dams in the region..............Hey guys,,,,a better solution,,,,,,,,,Lets work on de-commissioning the dams so that the trees grow back!!!!!

http://shar.es/1XOK6P

Black bears flirting with

 hibernation in new man-made 

dens on Vancouver Island

BY SAM COOPER, THE PROVINCE NOVEMBER 28, 2014

7

• STORY
• PHOTOS ( 2 )

A female black bear and her cubs investigate one

 of the three plastic-culvert bear dens built in the 

forest-land of Jordan River, in a pilot program to

 increase bear habitat lost on Vancouver Island.

 Submitted photo

A number of coastal black bears have been
poking around artificial dens created as part
of a new Vancouver Island conservation
program, but it’s too soon to tell if the bears
 will take up winter residence.

This summer, Helen Davis of
 Artemis Wildlife Consultants
 installed three dens using three
-metre-long plastic culverts,
 placed in the deep
 forests of the Jordan River
 watershed west of
Victoria.

The plastic dens, open-ended at one end and
 lined with conifer boughs and special scents to
 hopefully make bears comfortable, have been
placed as part of a pilot project funded by the
 Fish and Wildlife Compensation Program.

Black bears use hollow tree structures for
 winter dens, but hydroelectric facility flooding
 in the area has removed large trees that bears
would have used to make dens. The loss of
habitat could be compounded, since generations
 of bears often reuse existing tree dens.

The goal of Davis’s team’s project is to increase
 black bear habitat in the area, and mitigate for
habitat lost to flooding and reservoir creation for
the Jordan River hydroelectric dam.

Davis says this den-creation technique has
never been tried before, and monitors won’t
 know until spring if the plastic dens have
been fully used. In the months leading up to
the current hibernation period, remote sensor
 cameras placed near the den structures have
 captured families of bears nosing and pawing
and investigating the plastic winter-homes,
which gives Davis some hope.

“We figure it might take up to five years, with
the plasticky smell and that sort of thing,”
 before bears adopt the man-made dens,
 Davis said.

There are up to 160,000 black bears in B.C.,
 about 25 per cent of Canada’s population,
according to the Ministry of Environment.