While wildlife and cultural preservation goals can be either complimentary or counteractive, the goals of large carnivore conservation and traditional pastoralist lifestyles are often at odds. Livestock depredation can negatively impact the economies of livestock herders, while subsequent lethal removals contribute to local carnivore population declines. Here, we collaborated with two Sami reindeer herding communities (2010-2016) situated in Sweden's boreal forest to evaluate the efficacy and economic feasibility of three brown bear predation mitigation measures: corralling pregnant reindeer during parturition, lethal bear management removals, and public bear-license hunting. Calving corrals increased survival for reindeer calves born to average-sized females by 7%-15%, and by 14%-30% for calves born to small females. However, the realized cost of implementing calving corrals outweighed the financial gain for both our study areas (net losses ranged between euro1111 and euro6210 per calf saved from bear predation per year when using the updated 2021 calf value; 1euro [Euro] = US$1.1), as well as for almost every theoretical scenario we explored (net losses euro234 and euro13,995 per calf saved from bear predation). The exception was the theoretical scenario where small herding communities overlapped large bear populations, which crossed the breakeven efficacy bear/reindeer ratio of 13.5 bears/100 reindeer and had a potential net gain of euro36 per saved calf. Similarly, the cost of lethal management removals of bears outweighed the potential financial gain from saved calves, with net losses between euro75 and euro239 per calf. License hunting, where the hunters voluntarily incur the monetary costs of removing bears, is in most cases the only economically viable mitigation measure where the cost of mitigation did not outweigh the financial gain from increased reindeer survival. While the annual public license hunt was the most cost-effective mitigation measure, it may be less biologically effective, that is, bear hunting occurs in the fall and reindeer parturition the following spring which leaves time for the empty niche of harvested bears to be filled by survivors. Economically and biologically effective predation mitigation measures are key for promoting coexistence, and we suggest that potential mitigation measures should be studied in collaboration with local people.

Abstract Although the advent of high‐resolution GPS tracking technology has helped increase our understanding of individual and multispecies behavior in wildlife systems, detecting and recording direct interactions between free‐ranging animals remains difficult. In 2023, we deployed GPS collars equipped with proximity sensors (GPS proximity collars) on brown bears (Ursus arctos) and moose (Alces alces) as part of a multispecies interaction study in central Sweden. On 6 June, 2023, a collar on an adult female moose and a collar on an adult male bear triggered each other's UHF signal and started collecting fine‐scale GPS positioning data. The moose collar collected positions every 2 min for 89 min, and the bear collar collected positions every 1 min for 41 min. On 8 June, field personnel visited the site and found a female neonate moose carcass with clear indications of bear bite marks on the head and neck. During the predation event, the bear remained at the carcass while the moose moved back and forth, moving toward the carcass site about five times. The moose was observed via drone with two calves on 24 May and with only one remaining calf on 9 June. This case study describes, to the best of our knowledge, the first instance of a predation event between two free ranging, wild species recorded by GPS proximity collars. Both collars successfully triggered and switched to finer‐scaled GPS fix rates when the individuals were in close proximity, producing detailed movement data for both predator and prey during and after a predation event. We suggest that, combined with standard field methodology, GPS proximity collars placed on free‐ranging animals offer the ability for researchers to observe direct interactions between multiple individuals and species in the wild without the need for direct visual observation.

IntroductionClimate change is altering the reproductive phenology of many organisms, but the factors that influence the timing of gestation in ursids are still poorly understood. Higher temperatures in spring are already causing an earlier den exit in some brown bear populations, and a temporal mismatch between hibernation and reproduction could have dramatic consequences for reproductive success. Therefore, understanding the factors that control the timing of these events is important to forecast the consequences of climate change on population growth rates.MethodsIn this study, we used abdominal temperature loggers and GPS collars with acceleration sensors on 23 free-ranging pregnant female brown bears living in two areas in Sweden (61°N and 67°N latitude) to pinpoint hibernation and reproductive events. We investigated how intrinsic and extrinsic factors influence the termination of embryonic diapause and parturition, as well as their impact on reproductive success.ResultsThe termination of embryonic diapause was later in the northern area compared to the southern area and occurred earlier when ambient temperature at den entry was higher in both areas. In the southern area, young adults (i.e., females = 7 years old) had a delayed parturition when bilberry abundance was low the year of mating. Additionally, young adults had a lower reproductive success than adults and their probability to reproduce successfully was dependent on bilberry abundance, whereas adult females were not affected by this parameter.DiscussionAs den exit occurs later in the northern study area, we suggest that a later parturition might ensure that females lactate their cubs in the den for a reasonable amount of time while fasting. Similarly, a later parturition combined with an earlier emergence could allow young adults to spend less time in the den lactating if they could not reach an optimal body condition prior to hibernation. But as a result, their cubs are younger and more vulnerable when they leave the den leading to lower survival rates. Our results suggest that a decreased berry abundance in the fall could impact the reproductive and hibernation phenology of Scandinavian brown bear females and lead to a lower cub survival with potential consequences on the population dynamics.

Biological rhythms, such as rhythms in activity and body temperature, are usually highly synchronized and entrained by environmental conditions, such as photoperiod. However, how the expression of these rhythms changes during hibernation, when the perception of environmental cues is limited, has not yet been fully understood for all hibernators, especially in the wild. The brown bear (Ursus arctos) in Scandinavia lives in a highly seasonal environment and adapts to harsh winter conditions by exhibiting hibernation, characterized by reduced metabolism and activity. In this study, we aimed to explore the expression of biological rhythms in activity, body temperature and heart rate of free-ranging brown bears over the annual cycle, including active, hibernation and the transition states around den entry and exit. We found that rhythms in physiology and activity are mostly synchronized and entrained by the light-dark cycle during the bears' active state with predominantly diel and ultradian rhythms for body temperature, activity and heart rate. However, during hibernation, rhythms in body temperature and heart rate were considerably slowed down to infradian rhythms, influenced by the amount of snow in the denning area, whereas rhythms in activity remained diel. Rhythms in the transition states when bears prepared for entering or coming out of hibernation state displayed a combination of infradian and diel rhythms, indicating the preparation of the body for the change in environmental conditions. These results reveal that brown bears adjust their biological rhythms to the seasonal environment they inhabit. Rhythms in physiology and activity show simultaneity during the active state but are partly disconnected from each other during hibernation, when bears are most sheltered from the environment.

In northern Eurasia, large carnivores overlap with semi-domestic reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) and moose (Alces alces). In Scandinavia, previous studies have quantified brown bear (Ursus arctos) spring predation on neonates of reindeer (mostly in May) and moose (mostly in June). We explored if habitat selection by brown bears changed following resource pulses and whether these changes are more pronounced on those individuals characterised by higher predatory behaviour. Fifteen brown bears in northern Sweden (2010–2012) were fitted with GPS proximity collars, and 2585 female reindeers were collared with UHF transmitters. Clusters of bear positions were visited to investigate moose and reindeer predation. Bear kill rates and home ranges were calculated to examine bear movements and predatory behaviour. Bear habitat selection was modelled using resource selection functions over four periods (pre-calving, reindeer calving, moose calving, and post-calving). Coefficients of selection for areas closer to different land cover classes across periods were compared, examining the interactions between different degrees of predatory behaviour (i.e., high and low). Bear habitat selection differed throughout the periods and between low and high predatory bears. Differences among individuals’ predatory behaviour are reflected in the selection of habitat types, providing empirical evidence that different levels of specialization in foraging behaviour helps to explain individual variation in bear habitat selection.

Humans disturb bears in many ways, either directly when they encounter humans or indirectly by changing their behavior and way of life to avoid humans, human activity, and infrastructure. Here we summarize research on how brown bears normally react when encountering humans, what a human encounter may entail for a bear, and whether bears habituate or change their behavior toward humans with increased exposure. Based on this, we also discuss: (a) how our knowledge of brown bear behavior may help people to deal with their fear of bears, and not limit their use of outdoor areas with bears; (b) how human presence, activity, and infrastructure have an indirect effect on bears, that is, how bears change their movement pattern, use of terrain and vegetation, and daily activity pattern to avoid humans; (c) how human disturbance influence foraging and denning, which is crucial for brown bear growth and reproduction; and (d) apparent differences among continents in brown bear behavior toward humans and whether this may have an evolutionary cause.

The media and scientific literature are increasingly reporting an escalation of large carnivore attacks on humans, mainly in the so-called developed countries, such as Europe and North America. Although large carnivore populations have generally increased in developed countries, increased numbers are not solely responsible for the observed rise in the number of attacks. Of the eight bear species inhabiting the world, two (i.e. the Andean bear and the giant panda) have never been reported to attack humans, whereas the other six species have: sun bears Helarctos malayanus, sloth bears Melursus ursinus, Asiatic black bears Ursus thibetanus, American black bears Ursus americanus, brown bears Ursus arctos, and polar bears Ursus maritimus. This chapter provides insights into the causes, and as a result the prevention, of bear attacks on people. Prevention and information that can encourage appropriate human behavior when sharing the landscape with bears are of paramount importance to reduce both potentially fatal human–bear encounters and their consequences to bear conservation.

Background Understanding animal movement facilitates better management and conservation. The link between movement and physiology holds clues to the basic drivers of animal behaviours. In bears, heart rate increases with the metabolic rate during the active phase. Their movement and heart rate change at seasonal and daily scales, and can also depend on environmental factors. Their behaviour is, therefore, flexible in activity patterns with high individual variations. The aim of this study was to establish the relationship between heart rate and distance travelled, and test whether this relationship was influenced by environmental (e.g., time of year and time of day) and biological (e.g., reproductive status, sex, body mass and age of the bears) factors. We analysed data of distance travelled and heart rate of 15 GPS-collared brown bears, both males and females, equipped with cardiac loggers in the south of Sweden in 2014–2017. Results Heart rate increased with distances travelled exceeding 50 m in an hour, but this correlation depended on the day-of-year with higher heart rate in August than in May. Bears accompanied by cubs had lower heart rate than solitary bears especially in May. When movement was minimum (< 50 m in an hour), heart rate was not related to distance travelled and was very variable, regardless of the months. Conclusions Our findings suggest that heart rate increases with long distances travelled, but varies with day-of-year and reproductive status, depending on the metabolic rate. Studying the change in heart rate in bears can help to evaluate their seasonal rhythms and how different factors affect them. This study illustrates the usefulness of combined bio-logging proxies, i.e., movement and heart rates in our case, in animal ecology.

Fear of large carnivores such as brown bears may restrict people’s outdoor activities regardless of experts’ estimated risk of attack. This research study empirically examined three exposure interventions in the form of guided walks intended to give people living in brown bear areas tools for coping with their fear. All interventions significantly reduced fear, decreased people’s perceived vulnerability, and increased their social trust in wildlife management authorities. The walk including an encounter with a radio-collared bear in a wild bear habitat resulted in the largest reduction in fear, followed by the walk in the wild bear habitat only and then the walk in a park with captive bears. The wild bear habitat walk was the intervention best suited for further development as it may be used in any area where bears occur and without affecting animal welfare.

Several large carnivore populations are increasing in human-dominated landscapes, but this good conservation news includes management challenges. Because of existing fear and negative human attitudes towards carnivores and potential carnivore habituation to people, better knowledge on carnivore behavior is needed to favor human-carnivore coexistence. We performed up to 8 experimental, repeated approaches on 29 radio-collared brown bears (Ursus arctos) in Sweden (195 approaches) to test if bears always avoided people or showed sign of habituation or sensitization. Bears consistently avoided the approaching humans. The proportion of bears that stayed or moved away from their initial site and their flight initiation distances did not increase or decrease with increasing number of encounters, and the bears' daily movement pattern changed consistently after each approach. Bears that moved away did so immediately, followed by a reduced movement afterwards. Bears moved less during daytime for the next three days after an approach, compared to their movement pattern before the approaches started. The initial reaction was consistent after consecutive approaches, whereas the decrease in movement in the following hours and middays was less clear after the first three consecutive approaches. The number of carnivore-human encounters may increase in human-dominated landscapes when carnivore numbers increase, but our results suggest that this should not be interpreted as an increased risk of aggressive behavior. We detected no change in the natural response of the bears, i.e., avoiding people, at the level of disturbance we created. This is a positive message for humans, but altered daily activity patterns can have negative effects on the disturbed animals, which also deserves attention.

Innovations in biologging have offered new possibilities to better understand animals in their natural environment. Biologgers can be used by researchers to measure the impact of human disturbances on wildlife and guide conservation decisions. In this study, the behavioral and physiological responses of brown bears (Ursus arctos) to hunts using dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) and human encounters were assessed to better understand the impact of human outdoor activities on brown bears. In Scandinavia, brown bear hunting and the use of dogs during hunts is increasing in popularity. Nonetheless, not every hunt leads to a killed bear. This means that for each bear that is shot, multiple bears may be chased but not killed. In addition, bears can also be disturbed when encountering non-hunting humans. Heart rates, body temperatures, GPS coordinates and dual-axis activity data were collected from 52 simulated hunts (a simulated hunt using dogs with the bear allowed to flee at the end) and 70 human encounters (humans intentionally approaching the bear) that were carried out on 28 free-ranging female brown bears in two study areas in Sweden. The results showed that: (1) simulated hunts had a greater impact and induced a greater energy cost than human encounters; (2) the amount of time bears rested the day after the simulated hunts increased linearly with the duration of the simulated hunts, implying a lasting behavioral impact relative to the intensity of the disturbance. Although not tested in this study, brown bears that are repeatedly disturbed by dog hunts and human encounters may be unable to compensate the disturbances' energy cost, and their fitness may, therefore, be altered. If it is the case, this effect should be accounted for by managers.

Human disturbance causes behavioral responses in wildlife, including large carnivores. Previous research in Scandinavia has documented that brown bears (Ursus arctos) show a variety of behavioral reactions to different human activities. We investigated how proximity to human settlements and roads, as proxies of human influence, affected brown bears' reactions to encountering humans. We analyzed experimental approaches to GPS collared bears, 18 males and 23 single females, in Sweden (n = 148 approaches) and Finland (n = 33), conducted between 2004 and 2012. The bears in Finland inhabited areas with higher human density compared to Sweden. However, the proportion of bears staying or moving when approached and the flight initiation distances were similar in both countries. In Sweden, the flight responses were not dependent on human densities or roads inside the bears' home ranges or the distances from the bears to roads and settlements. Brown bears in Fennoscandia live in areas with relatively low human population densities, but in many areas with high forestry road densities. Our results show that bears' flight reactions were consistent between areas, which is an important message for management, reinforcing previous studies that have documented human avoidance by bears at different spatial and temporal scales.

Human persecution and habitat loss have endangered large carnivore populations worldwide, but some are recovering, exacerbating old conflicts. Carnivores can injure and kill people; the most dramatic form of wildlife-human conflict. In Scandinavia, the brown bear (Ursus arctos) population increased from ~500 bears in 1977 to ~3300 in 2008, with an increase in injuries, fatalities, and public fear of bear attacks. We reviewed media coverage and interviewed victims to explore how bear population trends, hunter education, and other factors may have influenced the number of injuries and fatalities in Scandinavia from 1977 to 2016. We found 42 incidents with 42 injuries and 2 fatalities; 42 were adult men, one was an adult woman conducting forestry work, and one was a boy skiing off-piste. Thirty-three adult men were hunting bears, moose, or small game, often with a hunting dog, and 26 had shot at the bear at 8±11 m before injury. Eleven nonhunters were conducting forestry work, inspecting a hunting area, picking berries, tending livestock, hiking, harassing a denned bear, and one person was killed outside his house at night. Eight of the 11 incidents of nonhunters involved female bears with cubs; three of these family groups were in dens and two were on carcasses. The annual number of hunters injured/killed was mostly influenced by the increase in the bear population size. The pattern was similar regarding injuries/fatalities to other outdoor users, but the relation with the bear population size was weaker than for hunters, and the null model was equally supported. Bear physiology at denning may make encounters with bears more risky in the fall, when bears show prehibernation behavior. Awareness and education efforts, especially among hunters, seem important to ensure human safety. Recreationists and forestry workers should avoid dense vegetation or make noise to warn bears of their presence.

The brown bear population in Scandinavia has substantially increased the last 30 years, in-creasing the probability of interactions between humans and bears. This environmental change is evident to many who live in brown bear areas and to them it is important to feel safe when engaged in nature based activities. This research project aimed to, further develop and evaluate two specific interventions with regard to their effect on fear of encountering brown bears in nature, departing from psychological theory on human-environment interaction and emotional appraisal. The two interventions were guided brown bear walks and information meetings, both directed to people who live within brown bear areas and express fear of encountering bears.The empirical work was divided into three studies: In Study I the effect of three types of guided brown bear walks was evaluated in a between-group design: Within brown bear habitat approaching a radio collared bear (N = 24), within brown bear habitat close visiting the location for a previous bear approach (N = 27), and within a large carnivore park with fenced brown bears (N = 24). The three types of walks all contributed to significantly reduce the participants’ feelings of fear, perceived vulnerability, and to an increase in social trust. The effect lasted over at least three months. The strongest effects were seen in self-reports and experimental measures among participants who walked in brown bear habitat. The participants reported that the experience of the terrain, being close to a bear under controlled conditions as well as the experienced guide and the group were important aspects that helped reduce feelings of fear. Study II focused upon the effects of information meetings on humans and bears. This study was carried out in parallel with a similar study in Sweden. The verbal information presented was the same as the information given by the guides in Study I, but the participants received the information through an oral presentation. An extensive work was made to recruit participants, yet only six persons attended the information meeting, compared to 97 participants in the Swedish study. One plausible explanation is that the Norweigan meeting was arranged in collaboration with Rovdyrsenteret in Fla that is located in an area without presence of brown bears. The six participants in the meeting reported reduced feelings of fear of encountering brown bears. Study III complemented Study II and aimed at understanding how verbal information about brown bears is received by students who in their future work may meet persons who fear bears. Moreover, in a between-group design the effect was compared between the information on humans and bears interactions (N = 28) given in Study II and information on brown bear ecology (N = 35). The results show that students who listened to the information on humans and bear interactions afterwards provided more elaborated examples on how they themselves would take care of a person who expressed feelings of fears than did those who had listened to information on brown bear ecology.The results show that guided walks in brown bear habitats and information about bears designed according to psychological principles and led by experienced guides may reduce people’s fear of encountering brown bears in nature. Principles for how these interventions could and should be used in practice needs to be developed together with large carnivore information centers and managing authorities. The interventions should also be further developed to be spread to different groups in society. (Less)

Information and education are frequently proposed as interventions to reduce the public’s fear of large carnivores. There are however few comprehensive evaluations of informational approaches, and existing evaluations rarely capture effects on human dimension factors such as people’s feelings of fear. In a recent study of public information meetings designed according to psychological principles it was found that these meetings, if the information was considered credible, could increase the participants’ social trust, and decrease vulnerability and feelings of fear. The analyses also revealed the importance of meta-communication, e.g. non-verbal cues in the interaction between presenter and audience. With the aim to further corroborate the impact of such meetings on people’s feelings of fear, approx 100 persons fearful of brown bears were during the spring 2017 invited to similar information meetings about brown bears. The participants’ self-reported fear, vulnerability and social trust were assessed before and after the meetings. The evaluation was further developed by varying the presenter of the information, adding experimental measures of fear and systematically studying the meta-communication during these meetings. Further results from ongoing analysis will be reported and discussed in relation to the evaluation of human dimensions factors in wildlife management. (Less)