Brown bears in slovemia - Potentials and limitations in a cultivated landscape

The East-Austrian Alps, becoming a bear country again, are also increasingly confronted with bear problems or "problem bears". This study tried to learn for coming years from the population ecology and the human dimensions of the alpine source population of brown bears in Slovenia. The results were partly unexpected or surprising, partly confirming already existing knowledge: for instance, - bears appear in densely settled multi-use landscape much more tolerant towards human infrastructure and land use than expected; avoidance of man is mostly exhibited by the bears nocturnal activity regime; - even in winter time, when bears are confined for long periods to a den (mostly in a cave), they prefer quite inaccessible localities of suited caves, but this in a vicinity to human infrastructures down to 500m only; - despite a lot of year-round supplemental feeding efforts, bears still make heavy use of natural food sources, especially of ants (quantitatively up to more than 40 percent) what should be more considered in future habitat suitability assessments; - modelling bear habitat suitability identified forest cover ad forest fragmentation as key factors for predicting habitat use and interconnecting migration corridors: a good habitat connection between the Dinaric Mountains and the Eastern Alps still exists and should be of highest conservation priority ( Natura 2000); - modelling of bear dispersal showed that their movements can be largely simulated by random walks ("trial & success"); - The highway in our study area did not irreversibly separate the studied bear population, but was a significant source of accidental mortality which in still small founder populations might become a limiting factor; - human attitudes towards bears were mostly positive, with no real differences in the core range of the bear population and in more outer areas, but more different between target groups in this questionnaire survey; - and also a media analysis (1991-98) of bear articles in the Slovenian press did not show the expected trend of an increase in negative comments, but also only little information on bear management and conservation issues - overall knowledge of people was not very well on bears, but the generell feeling, it should not become more bears, was evident. Insofar, bear management in Slovenia should become more information-based as well as a more participatory people management, and because of the metapopulation context and the linkage value of the Slovenian bears within the Dinaric bear existence and the recent alpine founder stocks it should also become more internationalised. This study, at least, was already of an highly international character (cf. for details the departments home page), and could initiate something into this direction.