Habitat loss and fragmentation occur on a broad scale as a result of forestry and fire suppression, and expanding human settlement. Body and home range sizes across the province are proportionate to food quality, quantity and distribution, and the length of the denning period. Adult female home ranges may be as small as 25 km 2 in productive habitats. In B.C., grizzly bears are efficient predators and scavengers but rely more on a vegetative diet. A huge variety of plant, animal, fish and insect food sources are regionally important.
Reproductive rate is the lowest recorded among North American land mammals.
Adult female grizzly bears will tolerate their female offspring within their home ranges, especially when population densities are lower than the habitat can support. As a result, subadult female dispersal outside maternal home ranges is rare in much of B.C. Areas where all resident adult females have been killed are therefore not usually recolonized by dispersing subadult females. Transient males may continue to use such areas, but long-term local viability is unlikely. The extreme southeast corner of the province appears to support a healthy population of grizzly bears, as do the Northern Boreal Mountains ecoprovince and the northern portion of the Sub-boreal Interior ecoprovince. Elsewhere in the province, distribution is highly variable.