The author investigates 5 main ways industries effect grizzly bears. These 5 effects are taken from 5 ways in which humans in general can effect bear populations:
"1) we can stimulate strong, energetically expensive reactions by bears that disrupt their normal behaviour,
2) bears can be displaced from areas of human use, resulting in the loss of habitats available,
3) people can alter the dynamics of plant and animal communities, or habitats, that bears live and depend on,
4) man can disrupt bears' social systems by forcing more bears into limited seasonal habitats perhaps causing increased intraspecific conflict, mortality and dispersal, and
5) man can cause direct mortality by legal harvest, poaching, legal and illegal nuisance bear killing or bear removal, self defense, and reasearch and management accidents."

The author notes that some of the ideas and concepts are supported by limited empirical data and should be considered hypotheses. Research and observation has shown that bears are capable of at least partially habituating to human activities as long as they are frequent enough and innocuous. He cites grizzlies and hikers in Glacier National Park, and radio collared bears and low flying aircraft as examples. Observations have also shown that human activities rarely cause extreme reactions by bears because human activities are usually predictable. Bears will simply avoid locations where human activities are common (roads, active industrial sites, etc.) Past experiences because of habituation and conditioning also seem to influence a bears sense of security with predictable events like roads and vehicles. Research indicated that displacement from vehicles decreased the longer the activity occurred. Habituation may also decrease the effect of intensity, such as number of vehicles. While we would expect more vehicles to cause greater disturbance and greater displacement, the frequency of vehicles may also increase the rate and degree of habituation.

As a result of this habituation and conditioning, road construction in remote areas appears to be the major long term impact of extraction industries and the most significant problem facing grizzly bears in most locations. Roads can account for all 5 ways in which humans affect bears.