An Adaptive Management Model for Brown Bears in Hokkaido: Based on Total Population and the Number of Nuisance Bears

ABSTRACT The brown bear population on Hokkaido Island, once threatened, has now fully recovered. However, this recovery has led to increased conflicts with humans, including injuries and agricultural damage. In this study, we compare the effectiveness of different management strategies using indicators such as the total bear abundance and the number of nuisance bears—both of which serve as measures of extinction risk and human‐wildlife conflict—by employing a population dynamics model. Additionally, we explore scenarios where the management policy is revised every 5 years, both with and without midterm revisions, based on qualitative trends in population size. Our results show that a buffer zone around urbanized areas overlaps with protected areas regardless of its width. However, a 30 km buffer would still leave 24.5% of the protected area outside the zone. Our findings suggest that under the current conditions, where population estimates are both infrequent and imprecise, and the numbers of both total and nuisance bears are high, it is challenging to mitigate conflicts without implementing population control measures. However, our results also suggest that a management approach considering both the total bear population and the number of nuisance bears can maintain low nuisance bear numbers and prevent extinction, provided mid‐term policy revisions are made in response to qualitative changes in population size.