Using community science to advance grizzly bear conservation

In Alberta, Canada, the distribution of grizzly (brown) bears (Ursus arctos horribilis) overlaps multiple different human land use types, from the south of the province along the Rocky Mountains and foothills, and into the northwestern boreal landscape (Nielsen et al. 2009; Morehouse and Boyce 2016; Hughes et al. 2021). As a result of an increasing human population and related land use, habitat fragmentation and loss, grizzly bears faced increased mortality across the province (Hughes et al. 2020, 2021). This has largely resulted from direct human–bear conflict including retaliatory or accidental killing of grizzlies due to livestock depredation issues, public safety concerns, poaching incidences, or motor vehicle collisions (Alberta Sustainable Resource Development 2008). In response to population concerns, grizzly bears were classified as a threatened species in Alberta in 2010; however, the management of the species has since been hindered by a lack of population data and challenges to implementing recovery policy across the different communities and people expected to live with grizzly bears (Chamberlain et al. 2012; Hughes and Nielsen 2019; Alberta Environment and Parks 2020; Hughes et al. 2020).

While in recent years a dearth of research and related publications have come out of efforts to understand grizzly bear population, the distribution and human–bear relations in the more southern and central reaches of their range (Morehouse and Boyce 2016; Alberta Environment and Parks 2020; Morehouse et al. 2021; fRI Research 2023), grizzly bears and their relationship to people across the northwest of the province, in Bear Management Area 1 (BMA 1; Fig. 1), are much less understood. Northwest Alberta’s BMA 1 includes a large, multi-use landscape characterized by northern boreal forest with wetland complexes and aspen parkland. BMA 1 covers approximately 41 000 km² (Alberta Environment and Parks 2020) and extends to the agricultural-forest interface, with an extensive network of roads and linear features as well as smaller urban areas (Hughes et al. 2021). Other human land uses include industrial-scale forest harvest, petroleum developments, varying agricultural production, and recreational pursuits (e.g., hunting, angling, hiking, camping, and off-highway vehicle use; Hughes et al. 2021). Taken together, human presence and corresponding land uses are often included as part of the mortality concerns facing grizzly bears, and are assumed or known to contribute to conflict between people and bears (Hughes et al. 2020, 2021).

Recent efforts to better understand the BMA 1 population have estimated a grizzly bear density of 0.70 bears per km² (Hughes et al. 2021). Unfortunately, due to the low density of grizzly bears in the area, studies estimating populations have been unable to model where grizzly bears are most likely to occur across this vast landscape. As a result, it is still unclear where interactions between humans and grizzly bears are most likely to occur, and thus where there may be increased bear mortality risk, human safety risk, or both. That said, many different people working and residing across BMA 1 often report grizzly bear sightings to local government staff. However, these reports have not been systematically recorded or rigorously collected, rendering this information less useful in applied management decisions. That said, there is acknowledgement that establishing and improving public engagement is a vital component to the long-term conservation of grizzly bears (Gibeau 2012; Proctor et al. 2018; Hughes et al. 2020, 2021). Indeed, the people who live, work, and recreate across BMA 1 play a crucial role in the long-term survival and sustainability of grizzly bears (Hughes et al. 2022b). Specifically, local people can share their first-hand observations of grizzly bears, which can offer insights into bear distribution, behavior, and population (Clark et al. 2014; Hughes and Nielsen 2019; Morehouse et al. 2020). This also presents an opportunity to share information with people who are keen to report their bear observations. This can include educational information on the best available science and research related to grizzly bears, as well as how to stay safe in bear country. Offering opportunities to share and learn can help nurture an ethic of care for grizzly bears, which in turn can aid in the adoption and implementation of grizzly bear recovery efforts (Toomey et al. 2020; Hughes et al. 2022a, 2022b).

We suggest then that to more effectively implement recovery policy and plan for effective management interventions we must have a better spatial understanding of human–bear interactions across BMA 1. Likewise, we need to provide the people who share the landscape with grizzly bears an opportunity to meaningfully contribute to grizzly bear science and management, as well as access relevant and pertinent information and educational experiences. In turn, this would help address the data gaps in grizzly bear recovery, specific to BMA 1, and help deliver on recovery objectives to mitigate human–bear conflicts.

As such, we, the regional government staff tasked with implementing grizzly bear recovery policy objectives, sought to engage local people in BMA 1 in reporting their grizzly bear observations in a systematic way. By soliciting local participation in grizzly monitoring, we aimed to identify how grizzly bears move through human-dominated landscapes to directly improve land use planning decisions and design effective management interventions. We also sought to increase scientific literacy and help foster a stewardship ethic and support for in situ grizzly bear conservation efforts with local people living and working in grizzly bear habitat (Cosquer et al. 2012; Sullivan et al. 2014; Vohland et al. 2019).

We developed a smartphone-based community science project, and corresponding website, to systematically and automatically collect public-generated data on grizzly bears across Northwest Alberta’s BMA 1. We aimed to generate data that would help inform grizzly bear conservation and management decisions, meaningfully engage community scientists, and evaluate the efficacy of our community science approach, all as part of grizzly bear recovery policy objectives. Overall, we found that GrizzTracker was a useful tool and approach to help improve data collected by members of the public, i.e., community scientists, and increased our confidence in identifying areas with potentially higher densities of grizzly bears and human use co-occurrence. From a bear management perspective, this has helped highlight where we can focus human–bear conflict mitigation efforts (i.e., bear safety education, electric fencing, or other attractant management techniques) as well as considerations for habitat management (i.e., forest harvest or other footprint planning, given connectivity considerations and how to reduce mortality risk; Alberta Environment and Parks 2020; Pers. Comm. L. Fullerton and N. Melnycky 2021; Morehouse et al. 2020).

Through our project, we also demonstrated the necessity and utility of collecting observer effort data, despite some concerns and hesitations from community scientists. Typically, community science projects collect observational data of, for example, individual species detections without real-time accounting for observer effort (e.g., eBird; Sullivan et al. 2014; and Bumble Bee Watch; MacPhail et al. 2020). As a result, species detections can be biased towards areas where people are more likely to purposefully search for their species of interest, which is often closer to urban areas that are easily accessible. Given the potential bias towards areas of higher human use and population, these detections may be less useful for identifying species hotspots, as was our intent with GrizzTracker. Through the collection of real-time observer effort data via GrizzTracker, we were able to determine the location of data collection hotspots by community scientists, and while these were often linked to routinely accessed linear features (i.e., industry roads, trails), we were still able to encourage community scientists to survey more remote locations. Further, we reviewed GrizzTracker data in light of a previous population inventory that sampled remote locations using DNA-based methods (Hughes et al. 2021). Given that we collected real-time observer effort, we were able to remove much of the bias associated with human land use habits and as a result, increased the utility of GrizzTracker-generated data for applied management decisions (Hughes et al. 2022a). Specific to our case, when adjusted for volunteer effort, the highest densities of grizzly bears were detected in the Chinchaga Wildland Park and north of the hamlet of Hines Creek, near the end points of roads entering the forested areas (Fig. 3). These data have provided us with specific locations where we can focus our BearSmart educational outreach efforts and applied conflict mitigation strategies (i.e., electric fencing; Morehouse et al. 2021), to mitigate and reduce human–bear conflicts and thus improve future bear populations sustainability (Hughes et al. 2020).

Another advantage of GrizzTracker was engaging the public in an active and meaningful way, which is an important factor in the success of community science and government-directed conservation programs (Newman et al. 2012; Ceccaroni et al. 2019). When asked why community scientists chose to participate in GrizzTracker, we found it was because our program provided an intriguing opportunity to contribute to grizzly bear science and land management decisions, similar to other research exploring community science (Bonney et al. 2009; Wright et al. 2015; Bloom and Crowder 2020; MacPhail and Colla 2020; Hughes et al. 2022a, 2022b). We also found that community scientists were motivated to recruit their friends, family, or colleagues, further suggesting that GrizzTracker presented a unique and interesting engagement opportunity.

Through this engagement, we were also able to increase scientific literacy of community scientists in data collection and analysis methods, the use of data in decision-making, policy, and management, and grizzly bear biology and ecology. By increasing people’s understanding of how grizzly bears use the landscape, we hoped that people would be inclined to adopt conflict mitigation practices (e.g., a farmer involved as a community scientist may invest in electric fencing or an oilfield employee may implement safety protocols for working in bear country). Further, we suggest that the educational information available on the GrizzTracker website, combined with public outreach sessions, email updates, and numerous informal conversations, contributed to cultivating meaningful engagement opportunities while enhancing awareness, knowledge, and understanding across the participating community scientists. However, we do note a critical gap in our engagement efforts, including a lack of Indigenous community scientists as well as agricultural landowners, as noted in Hughes et al. (2022a). We therefore suggest that others interested in pursuing community science projects would be well served to carefully consider the value of adopting multiple forms of engagement and educational strategies, seeking out formal and informal collaborations with various individuals and groups, and carefully consider and plan for an inclusive program to help achieve a project’s intended outcomes (Hughes et al. 2022a, 2022b).

In terms of improvements, we found that some users reported being frustrated with GrizzTracker because they expected to be provided with verification on their grizzly bear observations, and more specifically, real-time mapped locations of bears. Some users cited their safety concerns of working in bear country, where real-time reported bear locations would help address this. We did not provide real-time mapped locations of grizzly bears via the app for two reasons: (a) to better protect grizzly bears, which was particularly important given the species-at-risk status and potential for conflict or deviant behavior (i.e., poaching and/or illegal trapping) if bear locations were immediately known (Hughes and Nielsen 2019); and (b) financial and time limitations of creating this functionality in the app. Instead we provided a map of buffered locations of grizzly bear detections, with 2-week delay, on the GrizzTracker website and attempted to communicate any bear activity in the immediate vicinity of any employees to the site supervisor of an area, upon an observation being reported. While we maintain the need to protect the specific locations of reported grizzly bear observations over concern for mortality risks, we do think this issue represents the need for very clear communications from project managers on what community scientists can expect from their participation and why certain elements of a project can or cannot be shared. We also think this issue helps to highlight how unintended tensions between engagement and science goals can arise, and thus must be given fulsome consideration through a reflective process during project planning and throughout implementation (Lee et al. 2021).

Lastly, we note that not all community scientists are as eager to collect data and that some may be more interested in learning (Bloom and Crowder 2020). We found that our website and public outreach sessions were advantageous to build broader public interest, not only GrizzTracker but also in grizzly bear recovery overall, and represent an opportunity that other community science projects consider using in their project design.

Community science is a burgeoning field that is increasingly used by government and non-government organizations to help inform wildlife conservation and management (e.g., North American Breeding Bird Surveys; United States Geological Survey 2018; and Amphibian Monitoring; Lee et al. 2021). Indeed, the successful engagement of community scientists requires careful considerations for human, social, technological, and financial capital investment in the design, development, and implementation of data collection protocols and analysis, as well as the importance of clearly communicated outcomes and opportunities for educational outreach. In our case, the Northwest Grizzly Bear Team invested considerable time and financial resources to design, develop, and implement the program (Hughes et al. 2021, 2022a), and while the shared goals and costs between partners can improve program sustainability, GrizzTracker still suffered from various issues (Shirk et al. 2012). This included the loss of funding for a staff position responsive for community engagement, which in turn decreased the frequency of public educational outreach and resulted in related user complaints. While we attempted to strategically consider program resiliency when building GrizzTracker, sustaining long-term investment is difficult for governments and even industrial partners, given varying political and other priorities, staffing changes, financial uncertainty, or fluctuations in volunteer interest and commitment (Hughes et al. 2022a). Regardless, long-term investment in programs like GrizzTracker is required including dedicated staff, funding, and technological supports, if robust data collection and community science capacity-building is desired (Hughes et al. 2022a). We do note that other platforms, such as iNaturalist, may be useful, in part because it is a cost-effective platform independent of (in our case) government funding cycles (however, this may also be a risk if/when independent funding ceases); uses automatic identification of various species; removes or reduces upfront costs for project development and maintenance; has the ability to collect large quantities of data and increased utility of these datasets for other projects; data are accessible for public consumption; and may hold greater public trust because the platform is already known and accepted (Wittmann et al. 2019). Indeed, iNaturalist is used by the Government of Alberta, currently for encouraging public participation in biological inventories across different protected areas.

However, iNaturalist still may suffer from implementation and sustainability issues including a lack of dedicated staffing to champion programs and be a point of contact for public users; poor-quality photo submissions; user selection limitations; and waning long-term and consistent use by community scientists (i.e., as observed in the Government of Alberta’s use for protected area bio-inventories). We suggest that developing a novel project such as ours can help deliver on the specific desires and needs that community scientists want to see in a project and can create safeguards on data to help protect grizzly bears while still sharing timely information. We do note, however, that the cost of developing GrizzTracker, including contracting those with expertise in developing this technology, staff to champion the program, outreach costs, and longer term maintenance costs, is a consideration that needs to be carefully considered for any program, regardless if novel like ours or using an existing platform.

Based on our project learnings, we also suggest that it is important to consider whether the community scientists engaged in the project have the knowledge, understanding, and skills to collect data in a rigorous way, which includes give consideration for how to address concerns around quality assurance and quality control (Riesch and Potter 2013; Wittmann et al. 2019; Soroye et al. 2022). As suggested elsewhere, we too have found that these concerns can be alleviated through proper design, training, and testing for biases and outliers during data analysis (McKinley et al. 2017; Hughes et al. 2022a). There have been numerous studies comparing the ability of community scientists to collect accurate data to that of a professional scientist, and in many cases these projects have been found to collect high-quality data when properly implemented (Gollan et al. 2012; Jackson et al. 2015).

While there is continued trepidation by traditionally trained scientists to develop or engage in community science programs, we think that GrizzTracker offers a success story in community science (Hughes et al. 2022a). In addition to standardizing and automating data collection, we had thorough planning, testing, engagement, and training for our community science project. This helped to ensure clear outcomes and consistent and proper use of the GrizzTracker app itself, as well as encouraged widespread recruitment by other community scientists in our project. As a result, we have been provided with community-generated data that help us better understand grizzly bear use of a human-dominated landscape, showing where people may interact with a higher density of grizzly bears in BMA 1, and relatedly, take precautions to avoid potential conflict areas and plan for mitigations. GrizzTracker also has provided an educational opportunity for community scientists and the broader public, via public outreach sessions, and blog and email updates, which in turn has helped develop more transparent communication channels between government and the public, as well as increase scientific literacy and foster trust.

Based on our learnings, we think there may be future opportunity to expand GrizzTracker across grizzly bear range in Canada and the United States, or perhaps consider the utility of the app as a platform for all bear species, in a global context. However, the community must truly decide whether this is the type of project they want, as it is the community scientists who will determine whether these types of projects are successful.

We appreciate all the community scientists who participated in this program. We are thankful for the contributions and collaboration with forest tenure holders including Mercer Peace River Pulp Ltd., Canadian Forest Products, Tolko Industries, Manning Diversified Forest Products (a div. of West Fraser), and Boucher Bros. Lumber Ltd.; energy companies including Canadian Natural Resources Ltd., Husky Energy, and Shell; electrical company ATCO; KayeDon Wilcox, Natalka Melnycky, Lyle Fullerton, Bonnie Hood, and Paul Frame with the Government of Alberta; Gordon Stenhouse from fRI; Alberta Conservation Association; Alberta Agriculture and Forestry; Alberta Energy Regulator; and Luke Vander Vennen, now with the Government of British Colombia. We are also grateful for Ken Sanderson from Miistakis for building the smartphone application and assisting with data management.