Utility of National Wetlands Inventory Data for Black Bear Habitat Assessment in Coastal Louisiana
Existing landcover maps offer an inexpensive opportunity to conduct largescale habitat assessments for black bears (Ursus americanus), but because cover classes used in these maps may have been developed without consideration for bears, inferring bear food and cover distribution from these maps may be difficult. We evaluated the information content of a habitat map that we constructed using National Wetlands Inventory (NWI) data for a composite home range of 21 radio-tagged adult black bears in coastal Louisiana. Habitat types having potentially different food and cover resources for bears...
