Distribution, quantity and quality of food resources affect the diet and several other life-history traits of large mammals. Supplemental feeding of wildlife has high potential for influencing the behaviour and diet of opportunistic omnivores, such as bears. Supplemental feeding of brown bears Ursus arctos is a common practice in several European countries, but the effects of this controversial and expensive management measure on bear diet and behaviour are poorly understood. We analysed 714 brown bear scats collected throughout the year in three regions of Slovenia with different densities of supplemental feeding sites. Supplemental food was the most important food category in the bear diet and represented 34% of the annual estimated dietary energy content (maize: 22%, livestock carrion: 12%). The proportion of supplemental food in the diet varied with season and region, being highest in spring and in the region with the highest density of feeding sites. However, considerable seasonal changes in bear diet, despite year-round access to supplemental food, suggest that bears prefer high-energy natural food sources, particularly insects, fruits, and hard mast, when available. Despite high availability and use of supplemental food, human-bear conflicts are frequent in Slovenia. In addition, evidence from earlier studies suggests that changes in diet and foraging behaviour due to supplemental feeding may affect several aspects of bear biology and in some cases increase the probability of human-bear conflicts. Thus, we caution against promoting unconditional supplemental feeding as a measure to prevent or reduce human-bear conflicts.

Supplemental feeding is often believed to be a successful tool for reducing human bear (Ursus arctos) conflicts, especially in Europe. However, effectiveness of this measure is poorly understood and there is growing concern for potential negative side-effects. This is particularly true for supplemental feeding using livestock carrion. Carrion feeding is considered especially effective in reducing livestock depredations by diverting bears from pastures and meeting their protein needs. In Slovenia, year-round supplementary feeding of bears with livestock carrion and corn was intensive and in some areas practiced for over 100 years. However, in 2004 the use of livestock carrion was banned in accordance with European Union regulations. This provided an opportunity to study the effects of carrion feeding on livestock depredations by bears. We used sheep as they represented 97% of all depredation events by brown bears in Slovenia. We analyzed whether bears selectively used carrion feeding stations over corn feeding stations (i.e., indicating that carrion might be more effective in diverting bears from sheep pastures) during 1994-2011, and compared the annual frequency and seasonal distribution of sheep depredations 5 years before and after the ban on livestock carrion feeding during 1999-2009. We found no support that bears selected carrion feeding sites over feeding sites with corn. When controlled for changes in bear and sheep numbers, there was no indication that the ban on carrion feeding increased sheep depredations. Moreover, complementary data indicated that natural protein sources were considerably more important than livestock carrion and that use of carrion peaked in spring, when sheep are rarely outdoors and thus unavailable for depredation. Because of the observed lack of effectiveness, high costs, and potential negative side-effects, we discourage supplemental feeding with livestock carrion to reduce livestock depredations.

ABSTRACTAim We aimed to describe the large‐scale patterns in population density of roe deer Caprelous capreolus in Europe and to determine the factors shaping variation in their abundance.Location Europe.Methods We collated data on roe deer population density from 72 localities spanning 25° latitude and 48° longitude and analysed them in relation to a range of environmental factors: vegetation productivity (approximated by the fraction of photosynthetically active radiation) and forest cover as proxies for food supply, winter severity, summer drought and presence or absence of large predators (wolf, Canis lupus, and Eurasian lynx, Lynx lynx), hunter harvest and a competitor (red deer, Cervus elaphus).Results Roe deer abundance increased with the overall productivity of vegetation cover and with lower forest cover (sparser forest cover means that a higher proportion of overall plant productivity is allocated to ground vegetation and thus is available to roe deer). The effect of large predators was relatively weak in highly productive environments and in regions with mild climate, but increased markedly in regions with low vegetation productivity and harsh winters. Other potentially limiting factors (hunting, summer drought and competition with red deer) had no significant impact on roe deer abundance.Main conclusions The analyses revealed the combined effect of bottom‐up and top‐down control on roe deer: on a biogeographical scale, population abundance of roe deer has been shaped by food‐related factors and large predators, with additive effects of the two species of predators. The results have implications for management of roe deer populations in Europe. First, an increase in roe deer abundance can be expected as environmental productivity increases due to climate change. Secondly, recovery plans for large carnivores should take environmental productivity and winter severity into account when predicting their impact on prey.

Although the brown bear (Ursus arctos) is generally classified as an endangered species, the size and range of several bear populations are increasing in different parts of the world. Understanding how this occurs is essential for the species' management. Using reliable signs of bear presence and models, we analyzed multiple aspects of the spatial expansion of the brown bear population in Slovenia from the Core Bear Protective Area (an area established in 1966 for the conservation of brown bears; hereafter, Core Area) toward the Alps and other parts of the country in 1945-1995. Bear population densities increased between 1945 and 1995, but densities decreased with distance from the Core Area. The observed proportion of females increased overall during the study period from 6% to 20%, but decreased with distance from the Core Area from 27% (0-10 km from the Core Area) to 5% (> 70 km from the Core Area). This pattern likely is a consequence of male-biased dispersal, which can cause substantial changes in the sex structure of peripheral parts of populations in space and time. The population showed a net annual growth rate of 1.7%, and expanded spatially at an average rate of 1.6-1.9 km/year. Some females were recorded far from the Core Area (> 80 km), suggesting that unlike in stable or declining populations, females in expanding populations can exhibit long-distance dispersal. However, the frequency of females that dispersed far was so small that it probably had little impact on the dynamics of the population expansion.

Forest damages caused by red deer and some other large herbivore species occasionally feeding on tree bark, are a grave ecological and economic problem in many parts of the world. Winter supplemental feeding is commonly used to mitigate the problem, but its effects are poorly known. This study, carried out at Pohorje (Slovenia) and including over 2,300 trees, used binary logistic regression to analyse the effects of supplemental feeding and many other factors on the probability of bark stripping on spruce. The probability of bark stripping depends on distance from the forest edge, density, age and tree species diversity of stands, slope and aspect of terrain, and red deer density; contrary to expectations, it is not related to distance from feeding places. As much as 35% of spruce trees were damaged. The damage was the highest in younger, denser pure spruce stands, whose favourable protective and microclimatic conditions (thinner snow cover, higher effective temperatures) make them a preferred winter habitat for red deer. They contain,however, little other food but bark. To prevent / diminish bark stripping we propose a stronger thinning of such stands. Supplemental feeding may reduce damage only in exceptional cases, when animals are lured and concentrated in less sensitive areas, but in general we advise against the use of this measure due to its other negative effects.

We tested six hypotheses to explain expected geographical differences in body masses of 1,771 brown bears ( Ursus arctos ) from northern and southern Europe (Sweden and Norway compared with Slovenia and Croatia): Bergmann’s rule, the fasting endurance hypothesis, and the dietary meat hypothesis, which predicted larger bears in the north; and hypotheses stressing the role of high primary productivity, high population density, low seasonality, and length of the growing season, which predicted larger bears in the south. Although brown bear populations in North America vary greatly in body mass, we found no significant difference in body mass between the two European populations using a new analytical approach incorporating modeled age-standardized body masses in linear models, when correcting for sex and season. The greater variation in North America may be due primarily to the presence of large bears that feed on salmon ( Oncorhynchus spp.), which does not occur in Europe. Asymptotic body masses were 115 ± 9 (SE) kg in spring and 141 ± 9 kg in autumn for southern females, 248 ± 25 and 243 ± 24 kg for southern males, 96 ± 2 and 158 ± 4 kg for northern females, and 201 ± 4 and 273 ± 6 kg for northern males, respectively. Northern bears gained more body mass before hibernation and lost more during hibernation than southern bears, probably because hibernation was twice as long in the north. Northern bears gained and southern bears lost mass during the spring, perhaps due to the greater availability and use of protein-rich food in spring in the north. As reproductive success in bears is correlated with adult female body mass in interpopulation comparisons, brown bears may have relatively similar reproductive rates throughout Europe, although minimum age at primiparity and litter interval are lower in the south.

This Pan-Alpine Conservation Strategy for the Lynx (PACS) bases on two ideas: (1) no Alpine country can host a viable lynx population in isolation all regional populations will be transboundary; and (2) international co-operation is essential for the conservation of shared populations, and even more to solve the mutual problems. The goal is to re-establish and maintain, in co-existence with people, a vital lynx population covering the whole of the Alpine arc. This general goal can be split in four objectives: (1) The lynx populations in Slovenia and Switzerland maintain their vitality and must be helped to expand. (2) The populations in Slovenia and Switzerland are joined through colonisation of the area in between (Alps of Austria, Germany, Italy and Liechtenstein). (3) This unified population in the central Alps is allowed to expand to the north-east (Austria) and the south-west (France, Italy). (4) Gene flow is assured between the Alpine sub-populations and the population of Slovenia and Croatia, the population of the Jura Mountains and the population of the Bohemian/Bavarian forest. THE PAN-ALPINE CONSERVATION STRATEGY FOR THE LYNX Anja Molinari-Jobin, Paolo Molinari, Christine Breitenmoser-Würsten, Manfred Wölfl, Cvetko Stanisa, Michael Fasel, Philippe Stahl, Jean-Michel Vandel, Luca Rotelli, Petra Kaczensky, Thomas Huber, Miha Adamic, Iztok Koren and Urs Breitenmoser Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats (Bern Convention) Nature and environment, No. 130 Council of Europe Publishing French edition: La stratégie panalpine pour la conservation du lynx

In nature, animals have to cope with the fluctuating bioavailable metal pool in their habitat, which results in a seasonal variability of heavy metal levels in the animal body. Indeed, a pronounced summer–autumnal peak of heavy metals in roe deer (Capreolus capreolus L.) kidney was recently found in Slovenia. Considering the well-known hyperaccumulative ability of fungi, their ingestion was hypothesised to be one of the main reasons for the peak. Although fungi as a group are known to be a seasonally important food source for roe deer, data on their composition in the nutrition of the species have been lacking. To ascertain the importance of fungi ingestion on heavy metal intake in roe deer, we simultaneously studied fungal spores (by microscopic determination) and heavy metal levels (by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry and atomic absorption spectrometry) in roe deer faeces, collected in the period July–November 2001 at Veliki Vrh, the Šalek Valley, Slovenia. Irrespective of species, fungal spores were present in 89% of faeces; the following genera were found to be consumed by roe deer: Lycoperdon, Calvatia, Hypholoma, Coprinus, Russula, Elaphomyces, Xerocomus, Enteloma, Amanita, Cortinarius, Agaricus, Inocybe, Boletus, Macrolepiota, Suillus and Pluteus. While the importance of fungi ingestion on the seasonal variability of other metals is less clear, it doubtless influences Hg intake in roe deer, which is confirmed by: (a) the high frequency of fungi in roe deer nutrition; (b) their hyperaccumulative ability; (c) the temporal distribution of Hg in roe deer faeces; (d) differences among three classes of faeces established on the basis of the frequency of spores present; (e) the correlation between the number of fungal genera present and Hg levels in faeces. Therefore, the influence of fungi ingestion has to be taken into consideration in assessing the hazard due to the accumulation of mercury along the food-chain.

Yearlong protection of the brown bear, Ursus arctos, wolf, Canis lupus, and lynx, Lynx lynx, was adopted in October 1993 by a decree of the Government of Slovenia, including a harvest control of bears. But, despite being granted legal protection from shooting, large predators faced new threats arising from the changes in agricultural economics. According to the EU agricultural policy, financial support has also been granted to Slovene people engaged in sheep farming. The stock of sheep in Slovenia was estimated to be about 135,000 animals in 2004, and is slowly growing. With the expansion of the range of the brown bear and the wolf in post-1993 period, the risks of predation have spread from southern Slovenia to the west and northwest. The expansion of large predators has not been properly considered by the sheep farmers and, consequently, the extent of damage caused by large predators has increased since 1993. In the period 2000-2003, the claims for the compensation of damages, mostly upon livestock, amounted to around 706,000 Euros. In the same period 1,440 predation claims were registered. Provision of anti-predator protection is not an obligatory part of State-supported livestock projects, although predator damages have to be compensated from the State budget. Slovenia is a small country, but local communities differ greatly in the ways of life and economic resources available to them. Therefore the natural heritage, of which large carnivores form an essential part, may also be regarded as a nuisance by a good part of the people of Slovenia. Effective mitigation programs in predator-exposed parts of the country will therefore have to be launched. Target groups should be properly informed about the current expansion dynamics of carnivore populations, with emphasis placed on the exposure of their properties to potential predation. Livestock farmers ought to be aware that good anti-predator prevention of their properties is worth both the effort and the cost.

Fluctuating asymmetry (FA), which represents non-directional differences between the left and the right side, was measured for nine bilateral traits inthe antlers of 282 roe deer, shot in the period 1961 - 2002 in the Salek Valley. Our findings were as follows: (a) Five traits (antler length, length of both front and back tine, total beam length, and pedicle diameter) are suitable for FA analyses, since they fulfil the necessary statistical criteria. (b) A significant positive correlation between size and asymmetry exists for all traits; therefore, roe deer antler asymmetry does not reflect the quality of an individual. (c) Yearlings, whose antler asymmetry is not a suitable bioindicator of environmental pollution due to an incomplete ontogenetic development, have significantly higher FA in comparison with adults. (d) In the Salek Valley, roe deer antler FA has been decreasing since 1980; after the construction of the desulphurization device in the Sostanj Thermal Power Plant it is significantly lower in comparison with the period before construction. (e) On the generation level, there is a significant positive correlation between mean Pb levels in antlers and their mean FA, which identifies environmental pollution as one of the main stressors causing deviation from bilateral symmetry of deer antlers.

Fluctuating asymmetry (FA), which reflects non-directional and stress-induced differences between the left and the right side of otherwise perfect symmetrical bilateral traits, may be a useful sensitive bioindicator of stressful conditions in many wildlife species. However, in spite of their great potential, FA analyses present an almost unknown research field in Slovenia. Therefore, the following issues are discussed at greater length in the paper: (a) the most important principles, advantages and drawbacks of FA analyses; (b) a review of recent findings on the influence of some stressors on FA of bilateral traits in different wildlife species; (c) influence of heavy metals on FA of selected animal traits/organs; (d) a review of existing findings on asymmetry of antlers/horns in wildliving ungulates. As such, this review paper is important for a well-grounded presentation of our own work on roe deer antlers, and particularly for understanding the employability of roe deer antlers as an excellent tool for bioindication of environmental pollutionwith inorganic pollutants (companion paper).

The Ljubljana–Razdrto highway and the parallel Ljubljana–Trieste railway cut through critical brown bear (Ursus arctos) habitat in south-central Slovenia. These high speed, high volume traffic axes are located close to the main dispersal corridor for bears from the Dinaric Mountain range into the Alps. We analyzed radiotracking data of 15 individual bears that lived within 10 km of the highway, compared transportation related and overall known bear mortality, and analyzed the spatial distribution of bear–vehicle accidents. The highway posed a home range boundary to resident bears, but was not an absolute barrier. Transportation-related mortality was high in the vicinity of the highway and railway, and averaged 31% of the total known local mortality from 1992 to 1999. At present the detrimental impact of transportation routes on the bear population in Slovenia is modest due to the high density of bears and the low density of highways—but new highways are planned or already under construction. Managers have to be aware that, due to bears large home ranges and long dispersal distances, a single highway affects bears from a huge area—emphasizing the importance of international cooperation and a landscape approach in highway planning.

In this paper, we address three aspects of the brown bear population in Slovenia: its size (and its evolution over time), its spatial expansion out of the core area, and its potential habitat based on natural habitat suitability. Data collected through measurement/observation of the bear population and from the literature are used. A model is developed for each aspect. The results are estimates of population size, a picture of the spatial expansion of the population and maps of its optimal and maximal potential habitat (based on natural suitability). Overall, the brown bear population has been increasing since the establishment of a core protective area and has been expanding outside this area. The habitat suitability maps show that there is room for further expansion. Based on habitat suitability and bear population density, as well as human activity and current damage reports, we recommend that the Alps should be temporarily kept free of the bears, until the necessary mitigation measures regarding human–bear conflicts are carried out. On the other hand it is of crucial importance to adapt human activities and improve bear management in the optimal habitat, with which the goals of successful conservation of the species might be achieved.

Wildcats Felis silvestris Schreber, 1775 were captured for radio collaring as a part of a study of their spatial distribution and social organisation in southern Slovenia between 1999 and 2001. Double-door box traps, with a roof that bears easily break (bear permeable traps), have been used to capture individuals. The distances between traps were between 550 to 2200 m. They were set out on logging roads and narrow trails in the forest. Nine wildcats, one lynx Lynx lynx (Linnaeus, 1758) and one feral cat were caught as target species and 19 badgers Meles meles and one bear cub Ursus arctos as non-targets. The catching success was 1 wildcat/58 trap-days and seems to be in correlation with the lunar cycle. Overall, 7 males and 2 female wildcats were captured which might indicate sex biased trapping selection. Methodological improvements shortened the time of handling procedures. Improved field protocols as well as restraining and immobilisation procedures increased reliability and safety of drug administrations, decreased potential chances for injuries and reduced overall stress of captured animals.