Black bears focus of state, URI research project

SOUTH KINGSTOWN – Biologists from the University of Rhode Island and the R.I. Department of Environmental Management are researching the population and movement patterns of black bears living in Rhode Island.
“We previously thought that all of the bears in Rhode Island were young males that had been displaced from their mothers’ territory in Connecticut and Massachusetts,” said URI professor Thomas Husband, who is leading the project with DEM biologist Charles Brown. “But in recent years we’ve had reports of moms with cubs, which suggests that we may have breeding animals in the state.”
The scientists are setting up 42 “bear detectors” throughout western Rhode Island to collect bear fur that can be analyzed for its DNA.
This information will help the researchers track the bears’ movements “and give us some idea of abundance,” Husband said. “Eventually we may be able to determine which bears are related to others and figure out their gene flow, where the corridors are they travel along, what the barriers are to their dispersal, and better understand their ecology as they repopulate the state.” •

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