Carnivore Stewardship 

AITRC is working in partnership with Ahtna, Incorporated to better understand bear distributions and population levels within the Ahtna Traditional Use Territory. Preliminary results demonstrate that there are greater numbers of bears in the sample areas than state and federal resource managers previously thought.

 

The method involves trapping hair samples from the bears who visit scientific baiting sites, which are then sent off for DNA analysis in order to identify the number of individual bears in each area.