Grizzly expert to discuss threatened species status

Submitted by Marie Gilbert
Phone: (907) 474-7412
03/23/07

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

FAIRBANKS, Alaska--The man at the center of the science surrounding the controversial delisting of Yellowstone grizzly bears will be the Institute of Arctic Biology 2007 Jay Hammond guest lecturer March 27, 2007.

Chuck Schwartz will present "Status and trend of the Yellowstone grizzly bear: Application of science to the delisting process,"? Tuesday, March 27, from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. in Elvey Auditorium on the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Schwartz, leader of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team, will discuss the importance of long-term data collection and use of radio collars to determine population status and trend. Information on survival rate and long-term trend of bear activities can help guide land and wildlife managers to maintain healthy environments said Schwartz, who worked at the Alaska Department of Fish and Game for 21 years.

"He is the number one guy for everything that happens to brown bears in the Yellowstone ecosystem,"? said Kris Hundertmark, IAB assistant professor of wildlife ecology.

"All of the cutting-edge techniques used for Yellowstone bear management can be applied to Alaska,"? said Hundertmark. Among these techniques are stable isotope analyses, which can be used to determine what a bear has been eating simply by looking at its tissues.

The IGBST is an interdisciplinary group of scientists responsible for long-term monitoring and research efforts on grizzly bears in the greater Yellowstone ecosystem.

"The Yellowstone grizzly bear is a listed species,"? Schwartz said. "To establish and meet recovery criteria, it is necessary to understand the status and trend of the population and the impacts of humans on the bear and the habitat."?

The objectives of the IGBST are to monitor the Yellowstone grizzly bear population, determine patterns of habitat use and the relationship of human and land management activities to the welfare of the grizzly population.

"The reason the team was created was to ensure that data on the bears were collected in a consistent manner across all jurisdictional boundaries,"? Schwartz said. "If everyone collected the data in a different way, there would not be a complete data set with uniform protocols."?

Schwartz works for the U. S. Geological Survey’s Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center in Bozeman, Mont. His projects include demographics and population estimation, distribution, impacts of humans on habitats, survival and cause-specific mortality and the application of remote sensing and geospatial data to grizzly bear ecology.

For more information: (907) 474-7640 or www.iab.uaf.edu/events/eventsseminars.php

Campus map: www.uaf.edu/campusmap/blue_zone.html

Additional links:
Chuck Schwartz. www.nrmsc.usgs.gov/staff/schwartz.html
IGBST. nrmsc.usgs.gov/research/igbst-home.htm or
www.nrmsc.usgs.gov/research/igbst_overview.pdf

CONTACT:
Julie Jackson, media student assistant, Institute of Arctic Biology, University of Alaska Fairbanks, (907) 474-7640, fsjkj7@uaf.edu.
Marie Gilbert, public information officer, Institute of Arctic Biology, University of Alaska Fairbanks, (907) 474-7412, marie.gilbert@uaf.edu.
Kris Hundertmark, assistant professor of wildlife ecology, Institute of Arctic Biology, University of Alaska Fairbanks, (907) 474-7159, ffkh@uaf.edu.