About This Project

Fear of bears has gripped humans for centuries but no scientific effort has sought to understand how to negotiate encounters with wild bears. Field experience among professionals suggests that bears use vocalizations and postures to communicate their intentions and avoid conflicts with each other as well as humans. We hypothesize that by understanding their visible and audible communication signals we can develop a predictable and teachable pattern to communicate with bears.

Ask the Scientists

What is the context of this research?

Bears are not generally known as a social species like chimps or lions. However, in habitats with a high density of bears they often use visible and audible cues to communicate and negotiate encounters. While decades of bear-viewing has helped guides and other professionals develop anecdotal interpretations of this 'language', scientific documentation has never been attempted. Because bears aren't typically social, the opportunities and locations to document their social interactions can be a significant challenge. However, our research site is world renowned for a large population of bears that are highly tolerant of humans. Interactions can be observed multiple times per day for several months of the year.

What is the significance of this project?

Human-bear conflicts have increased in recent years as bear populations rebound from conservation efforts and humans push deeper into bear country. Furthermore, bears are charismatic creatures that are loved by many, but feared by many others. Regardless of one's opinions, most people fear unwanted interactions with bears.

Years of field experience among professionals suggest that bears communicate with humans in similar ways that they would another bear. As such, a greater scientific understanding of bear-bear communication can ultimately lead to safer experiences and coexistence for anyone who lives, works, or plays in bear country. Using this information, we could train people to properly negotiate close encounters, keeping bears and people alive and safe.

What are the goals of the project?

We hypothesize that by understanding the visible and audible communication signals of wild bears, we can then develop a predictable and teachable pattern to communicate with them and help ensure the safety of backcountry users. We will first observe and record the interactions of wild, free-ranging bears using camera equipment donated by National Geographic including 2 digital cameras, 2 zoom lenses, 1 wide-angle lens, and 2 shotgun condenser microphones. Post-field lab analysis will look for patterns in actions and reactions of bears as well as the context, syntax, frequency and interval of each sound. Sound analysis using Raven software will help by visually representing sounds. Our field methods and data analysis will follow Altmann, 1974.