And both populations are underestimated according to area biologists and game agencies.
Correct!
Oh I'd say a specific mountain range or unit would be good enough, as that's how people tend to talk about them.
Unfortunately, given the nature of grizzlies being wide ranging species, it’s not practical to look at population densities on such scales. Grizzly bears are managed for occupancy at the bear management unit (bmu), which is generally at the watershed level. So a single mountain range could have several to dozens of watersheds. Each bmu was established to approximate the lifetime home range of a single adult female. To further complicate things, there are also demographic monitoring areas (dma), which is where demographics (births, immigrations, deaths, emigrations) are monitored. These data can produce a truer density estimate. But bears and bmu’s occur both in and out of dma’s, so it really muddies the water in terms of getting a true density estimation. The counts are more like trend data, like winter aerial elk counts. It won’t tell you with certainty how many occur in an area, but it tells you what you tend to see over time. With those data you can make inferences of population sizes useful for management.
The zoo
I don’t see Kate Kendall’s study mentioned too often anymore, but I participated in the collection of hair samples for it.
I've left that area with my tail between my legs. It has to be one of the highest denstiys
