Grizzly bear locations, mortalities, and whitebark pine crops in Yellowstone Park and environs were analyzed from 1976 to 1990.

In years of large crops of whitebark pine seeds, grizzly bears used areas within 5 kilometers (km) of a road and 8 km of a development one-half as intensively as in years of small seed production. In small crop years, management trappings of grizzly bears were 6.2 times (X) higher, female mortalities were 2.3 X higher, and subadult male mortalities were 3.3 X higher than in large crop years.

Females and subadult males had a higher frequency of habituation to humans than adult males. Human-habituated bears were 2.9 X more likely to be within 4 km of developments than non-habituated bears, and had 3.1 X the mortality rate.

The study concluded that preservation of habituated bears is important to avoid underutilization of important habitat.