Methow Valley Community Bear Assessment

The Methow Valley Community Bear Assessment aims to identify areas of current and potential human-bear conflict within the Methow Valley, WA, and outline next steps for human-bear coexistence. This includes relevant background on bear biology and habitat use and presents data on historic human-bear conflict in the Methow Valley, particularly in the upper half of the developed portion of the watershed (Twisp, Winthrop, Mazama, and surrounding areas). It also identifies various factors affecting conflict including development, anthropogenic food sources, and solid waste management. This assessment serves as a guide for future work, presenting current needs, cost estimates, continued challenges, and suggesting where funds may be most effectively spent.

Read the Full Assessment Here!

Project Overview

Climate change, increased human development, and changes in natural food availability all contribute to black bear (skəḿxíst; Ursus americanus) use of human-inhabited areas and can elicit human-black bear conflict. In Washington’s Methow Valley, climate-change fueled wildfires have burned approximately 40% of the region over the past several decades, with more than half of that area burned in the past 10 years. The Methow Valley has also experienced a 33% increase in residential development over the last 15 years and will continue to see increased residential growth, with only 52% of all private parcels currently developed. In addition, wild berries from fruiting shrubs are an important natural food for black bears, but as summers in the Pacific Northwest get hotter and drier, the phenology and distribution of berry shrubs are changing. These combined influences have led to marked increases in human-black bear conflict in the Methow Valley.

While human-black bear conflict is common across the mountain west, the Methow Valley is in a position to examine and mitigate these factors before conflict becomes a widespread problem. In partnership with Methow Bear Aware, a collaboration between the Methow Conservancy (MC), the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, Defenders of Wildlife, and Home Range Wildlife Research, we are working to increase black bear awareness in the Methow Valley through a combination of outreach and community-based science initiatives. These include:

Implementing a community science black bear project to monitor bear activity and variables that influence human-bear conflict
Monitoring a pilot effort to improve bear-resistant waste management infrastructure in the Methow
Hosting workshops and sharing educational materials to reduce accessibility of at-home attractants
Conducting a valley-wide survey on the bear aware status of the Methow

Where this work is happening

We are sampling 37 randomly selected cells, roughly the size of an average female black bear's home range, throughout the Methow Valley Watershed using a combination of camera traps, field surveys, and remotely sensed data.

How community scientists are helping

From monitoring natural food availability along 'beary' walk transects, to sorting camera trap images and identifying seeds found in bear scats, we couldn't do this work with out our community science volunteers!

What we are doing to foster coexistence

Our research supports the Methow Bear Coalition, a collaborative effort to improve human-bear coexistence through education, outreach, and programs to help mitigate conflict in our community.

2024 Natural Food Survey Findings

In 2024, 37 community science volunteers collected data on 5 species of fruiting shrub species across the Methow watershed. They surveyed 37 transects, performed trail camera maintenance, and collected bear scats for compositional analysis.

Below are our synthesized findings on the abundance, crop success, and phenology of serviceberry, chokecherry, elderberry, currant, and dogwood across all transects.

The average species abundance across all of the transects in 2024 is quite similar to 2023's graph, as we would expect from surveying many of the same transects.

Community science volunteers surveyed an additional 7 transects for a total of 37 transects this year. While these additional transects somewhat shifted the average species abundance, serviceberry remained the most abundant species by far.

Crop success was OK this year. Serviceberry, the most abundant species we survey, had a high crop success, although many community scientists remarked on the berries becoming dried out as they ripened. Chokecherry and currant did not have many highly productive plants, while elderberry and dogwood showed a good amount of high and medium productivity plants.

Crop phenology for 2024 was similar to 2023, with serviceberry being one of the first ripening crops. This year currant ripened early as well, peaking in early July compared to August in 2023. Elderberry continued to be the latest ripening crop, providing peak berries in September.

Data from our trail cameras will be analyzed after multiple years of photos to better understand how bears are occupying the landscape and what characteristics of a landscape are important to them (eg. berry abundance, forest density, proximity to human development). Collected bear scats are being analyzed by a student at Colorado State University, and results will be available in spring 2025.

Thank you so much to all of our volunteers! We could not collect this data without their time and effort.