Summarizing Colorado’s black bear two-strike directive 30 years after inception
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Title
Summarizing Colorado’s black bear two-strike directive 30 years after inception
Description
Abstract: Colorado Parks and Wildlife implemented a new statewide management policy in 1985 fornuisance black bears (Ursus americanus), known today as the 2‐strike directive. It allowed wildlifemanagers to assess the repeatability of nuisance bear behavior after translocating them to quality bearhabitat away from human food sources. We evaluated this directive using 30 years (1987–2016)of nuisance black bear capture records. Statewide, 53% of 1,093 bears caught, marked, and moved(1st strike) were never reported again, while 25% were killed for a 2nd strike, and hunters harvested 17%. Subadult males committed 2nd strikes more quickly than adult males and females. Although timebetween strikes was greatest for adult females (496 days), they had the largest probability of committing a 2nd strike among all cohorts. We found that the number of 1st strike captures, from late summer throughfall was greatest during years of poor mast production. We suggest that the 2‐strike policy has been aneffective management tool for nuisance black bears in Colorado, USA, because of low rates of nuisancebehavior following 1st‐strike translocation. If a state or local management objective is to increase blackbear populations, wildlife managers may increase tolerance of adult bears that have received their 1ststrike in years when fall mast crops largely fail because they are less likely to commit a 2nd strike. Lowertolerance of subadult males may be warranted in bad food years, especially in areas where reductions inbear populations are desired, because they tend to repeat nuisance behaviors more quickly than otherbears.
Bibliographic Citation
Lewis, J.H., Alldredge, M.W., Dreher, B.P., George, J.L., Wait, S., Petch, B. and Runge, J.P. (2019), Summarizing Colorado's black bear two-strike directive 30 years after inception. Wildl. Soc. Bull., 43: 599-607. https://doi.org/10.1002/wsb.1032
Creator
Lewis, Jonathan H.
Alldredge, Mathew W.
Dreher, Brian P.
George, Janet L.
Wait, Scott
Petch, Brad
Runge, Jonathan P.
Subject
Black bear
Ursus americanus
Mortality
Conflict
Second strike
Translocation
Extent
9 pgs.
Type
Article
Format
application/pdf
Language
English
Is Part Of
Wildlife Society Bulletin
Date Accepted
2019-07-05
Date Issued
2019-11-28
Date Submitted
2018-02-27
Collection
Citation
Lewis, Jonathan H. et al., “Summarizing Colorado’s black bear two-strike directive 30 years after inception,” CPW Digital Collections, accessed March 4, 2026, https://cpw.cvlcollections.org/items/show/684.