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genetic relatedness of grizzly bears in the NCE to elsewhere in the Pacific Northwest.
Safety consideration
Travel in bear country requires attention to several safety considerations, especially when hiking, and
potentially camping with a powerful scent lure designed to attract bears. Teams should carefully review
how to distinguish between black bears and grizzly bears and procedures for how to behave during a
bear encounter. Western Wildlife Outreach's website (http://westernwildlife.org) provides an excellent
overview of this topic, as well as links to more resources. Below are a few key expectations for CWMP
camera teams traveling in the backcountry in potential grizzly bear country.
Always carry bear spray. CWMP provides teams with at least one canister of commercial pepper spray
designed to deter bears. Teams should keep this out and accessible at all times while in bear country and
be familiar with how and when to employ it. The chances of an aggressive encounter with a black or
grizzly bear are relatively low but often happen unexpectedly and teams need to be prepared for this
eventuality.
Keep scent lure out of campsites. Carry scent lure in a sealed container inside of a dry bag (provided by
CWMP) clipped to the outside of a team members backpack. For overnight trips never bring this bag
into camp. Instead, before entering camp, hang the bag from a tree using a rope to hoist it out of reach of
a potentially curious bear. Lure should be left at least 50 meters outside of your camp, similar to how
food is handled for bear safe backpacking.
Stick together. As part of scouting for a specific location to set a camera trap, teams will be looking for the
best habitat, food sources, and marking signs of bears. Doing so inherently puts teams at a greater risk of
having an actual encounter with a bear. Staying together as a group while searching for and installing a
camera trap can greatly increase the chance of early detection of a bear and decrease the chances that the
bear will act aggressively towards the team.
Camera Trap Site Selection
In 2014, CWMP will be selecting field locations based on the sampling model created by CCCP (2013).
CWMP camera teams will sample areas as yet unmonitored by CCCP. CCCP divided the NCE into
hexagonal sample units, each 2500 hectares. Each field team will be assigned two specific sample units
