Relative to natural diets, however, bears receiving anthropogenic subsidies were closer to the intake target of captive bears during autumn. Furthermore, there was less variation in autumn anthropogenic diets relative to the intake target region, which suggests that bears in such populations are not only more likely to consume optimal diets but are also buffered from environmental limitations in natural food supply. Thus, brown bears receiving anthropogenic subsidies as part of their diets may have a nutritional advantage over those consuming natural diets. However, bears consuming anthropogenic subsidies may also be more likely than natural populations to consume lower proportions of protein than optimal which may adversely affect fitness outcomes. For example, diets lower in protein than the preferred proportion selected by captive bears resulted in lower rates and efficiency of gain compared to diets higher in protein than the self‐selected optima (Erlenbach et al., 2014).