Predicted grizzly bear movement pathways in Central Montana: spatial data

Grizzly bears (Ursus arctos) have been increasingly observed in central Montana’s plains in recent years. To assist with conservation planning, we sought to predict habitat use and connectivity pathways for grizzly bears east of the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem (NCDE) and northeast of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE). We used the methods described in Sells et al. (2023b), "Predicted connectivity pathways between grizzly bear ecosystems in Western Montana," to simulate grizzly bear movements along the edges of the NCDE and GYE and into central Montana. Simulated grizzly bears used riparian areas in the plains most heavily, along with isolated mountain ranges. Based on known outlier locations and locations from GPS-collared bears, our resulting maps had high predictive capacity, with mean values at outlier or GPS locations of ≥7.1 and Spearman rank correlations of ≥0.84. The maps produced by these simulations are provided in this data release to contribute to conservation planning.