Preserving spatial connectivity and facilitating

transboundary monitoring at the edge of an expanding

brown bear population Experiences from LIFE DINALP BEAR project

Tomaž Skrbinšek, Biotechnical Faculty, University of Ljubljana

Berlin, April 2016

Brown bear

distribution

Europe at night (NASA/NOAA)

• 5 years (Julij 2014 – Junij 2019), 5.998.048€

• 4 countries (Slovenia, Croatia, Italy, Austria)

• 9 partners (lead beneficiary Slovenia Forest Service

PROJECT AREA

Core Area – high population

density, (relatively) low conflicts.

Expansion area – low population density, high conflicts.

Main Goals

• Establishment of transboundary management and conservation of

bears in the northern Dinaric Mountains and the Alps.

• Decrease of human – bear conflicts and promotion of coexistence.

• Support for natural expansion of the brown bear into the Alps.

Foto: Miha Krofel

First goal on the path to collaboration: GET PEOPLE TO START

TALKING! • Common Guidelines for Population-level Brown Bear Management

in NW Dinaric Mountains and the Alps (involving all key stakholders

in the process).

• Commitments of governments of participating countries to integrate

the results into national legislation.

• Wider collaboration – other Alpine Convention Countries (process

endorsed by the WISO platform), Bosnia.

It‘s not enough that managers from different

countries start talking to each other….

…they need to have

something to talk about.

Public

Researchers

Internet-based population-

level monitoring geo-

database

Database

Genotypes Samples

Stable isotope data

Diet data

Telemetry data

Observation data

Locations, paths…

Quality assurance protocols!

Management data

Wildlife damages

Mortality

…

…

Officials

Web Cartographic Interface

Direct data upload / download

Mobile App

User Interface

Automatic Callibration of Genotypes

Genotype matching

Automatic collection of GPS telemetry data from collars

Data (pre)processing

Preparation & handling of GIS & tabular input/output data

Yearly population status reports (first done 2015)

Direct actions – baseline study of population size

(beginning of joint long-term monitoring?)

“Counting fish is just like counting trees…

…except that they are invisible and keep moving.“

John Shepherd

Between 500 and 1000 participants.

1052 samples, 354 different bears „captured“.

2007 – intensive study in Slovenia (UL, SFS, SHA)

*The main result for bear management:

we stopped arguing about the population size...

*there are other benefits

… for a while.

2015 - estimates of population size, sex structure and

population range using non-invasive genetic sampling

High-intensity sampling

1,900,000 ha

19,000 km2

~ 6000 km2 SLO

~ 13,000 km2 HR

Lower intensity, long-term opportunistic sampling.

„This is nice.

I wish to participate!“

Personal – Level Involvement of Volunteers

GOAL!

Get individual people to directly participate!

Engage critical stakeholders,

mainly hunters and foresters

Personal DNA sampling kit

„Yay! I found a bear scat!“

Project Team

Geo-database

Analysis

Acknowledge

Results

Ackgnowledgement of receipt

Pesonalized results

Feedback!

SMS (?)

e-mail

„Wow! So that‘s where my bear is!“

Sample return + feedback Personal – Level Involvement of Volunteers

Country Registered Unregistered Total

Croatia 70 341 411

Slovenia 482 69 551

Table: Number of users that provided samples.

1336 users registered in the database (1098 Slovenia, 225 Croatia)

September – December 2015

4687 samples were collected in both countries (2472 Slovenia, 2205

Croatia).

Decent spatial and temporal coverage.

NOW LABWORK!

Promising parallel – monitoring Effective population size

(Ne)

Effective Pop. Size

(index)

Sex & Age

Specific Mortality

Connectivity?

mortality

males

females

Integration of bear habitat connectivity and suitability

into spatial planning

• Understanding habitat connectivity for bears in the project area.

• Production of „Environmental Impact Assesment Guidelines“ to

include spatial needs of bears in spatial planning.

Hopefully, a start of population-level monitoring and management…

…but at the end of the day, there needs to be a

will to collaborate for this to work in the long term.

www.dinalpbear.eu

Thank you!