Boné "Wildlife Biology"

As a bear biologist, you can expect to become familiar with the use of hair snares, which were developed in the 1990s to survey grizzly bears in Glacier National Park. It’s one way to determine population numbers and habitat expansion by unobtrusively collecting hair samples for study. In a hair snare, a corral made of a single strand of barbed wire is about 2 feet off the ground is set up around bait, usually fish oil. To get the bait, bears have to walk over the wire, leaving some hair behind. The hair collected is then analyzed, and DNA is then gathered to determine how many bears have passed through. The data provides a better picture of the bear population in a given area.