If you were wondering how many honey bears are left in the wild, the answer is “a lot,” according to a new study.
The University of New South Wales (UNSW) has found that honey bears in Western Australia’s south-west have a population of between 3,000 and 5,000.
This is the lowest number of honey bears recorded for the area, the research found.
However, the scientists also found that wild honey bears were found to be “well adapted to their habitats” and were “quite active”.
In other words, these bears were able to find food and drink and “tend to follow the herd”.
However, it is the fact that honey bear populations in the west of Australia were low that is worrying the researchers, said lead author Dr John Crampton.
“It is not surprising that they are declining,” he said.
“In many parts of the world, honey bears have a large range, they can move in many directions and can breed and reproduce and so on, but it is not known exactly how they do this.”
We found that in Western Australian, honey bear population is low, but the range is quite small.
“Dr Cramton said the species of honey bear found in Western and northern Australia was not representative of the range across the continent.”
Wild honey bears can be found in Australia, but there are only a few that have been recorded in Australia,” he explained.”
So there are a few species that are endemic to Western Australia, and some are endemic in other parts of Australia, so we need to look more closely at how these species were introduced to Western and Northern Australia.
“For example, in South Australia, we found honey bear in the north-west, but in the east-central part of the state, they were in the south-east and not in the region.”
Dr John Cramston said there was no single reason for the low honey bear numbers in the Western Australia region, but they were likely influenced by factors such as climate change, invasive species and feral pigs.
“I think it is really important that we keep an open mind about how we manage wild animals in Australia and we need a long-term understanding of what is going on and how to manage them,” he added.
“But we need evidence from other areas, such as New South Africa and South Africa.”