Abstract
Abstract: Levels of human-black bear conflicts fluctuate annually in the Adirondack Park of New York State, making prediction an important, but difficult task. Our objectives were to assess patterns in annual production of hard and soft mast consumed by bears and investigate relationships between food production and human-bear conflict. We hypothesized that conflicts were inversely correlated with beechnut (Fagus grandifolia) abundance. We compared 9 years of bear complaint records to annual beech mast ratings, and used time series analysis to identify patterns in summer fruit production over a nineteen year period. Human-bear conflicts were strongly negatively correlated with beechnut production (rs = −0.731, P = 0.025). In years when beech mast was scarce, complaints were on average 60.6% more frequent than complaints in heavy hard mast years. Production levels of important summer food species (Rubus and Prunus) shared periodicity with the two-year beech masting cycle. Summer fruit production varied more than expected and may contribute to increases in human-bear conflict, however, monitoring annual beech mast production appears to be a more useful tool for predicting escalation.