Adult digeneans of Maritrema afanassjewi Belopol'skaya, 1952 parasitize birds and mammals along the North Pacific coasts and were previously studied in terms of morphology. However, morphological ...features not supported by molecular characterization are considered an insufficient tool for the identification of evolutionary lineages of microphallid digeneans. Here we provide the first data on the phylogenetic position of this species inferred from sequences of the 28S rRNA gene and the ITS2 locus of the nuclear DNA, as well as additional morphometric data. The trematodes were isolated from the intestine of the Ussuri brown bear (Ursus arctos lasiotus Gray 1867) on Iturup Island (the southern Kuril Islands). This is the second record of M. afanassjewi in the brown bear. The phylogeny based on the 28S rRNA gene was poorly resolved for this parasite species. The analyses based on the ITS2 locus dataset showed that M. afanassjewi was a low-supported sister to Maritrema subaolum Jagerskiold, 1909.
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DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Personal injury and property loss caused by wildlife often deteriorates the relationship between humans and animals, prompting retaliatory killings that threaten species survival. Conflicts between ...humans and Tibetan brown bears (Ursus arctos pruinosus) (Human-Bear Conflicts, HBC) in the Sanjiangyuan region have recently dramatically increased, seriously affecting community enthusiasm for brown bears and the conservation of other species. In order to understand the driving mechanisms of HBC, we proposed six potential drivers leading to increased occurrences of HBC. We conducted field research in Zhiduo County of the Sanjiangyuan region from 2017 to 2019 to test hypotheses through semi-constructed interviews, marmot (Marmota himalayana) density surveys and brown bear diet analysis based on metagenomic sequencing. Analysis of herder perceptions revealed that the driving factors of HBC were related to changes in their settlement practice and living habits, changes in foraging behavior of brown bears and recovery of the brown bear population. Since the establishment of winter homes, brown bears have gradually learned to utilize the food in unattended homes. Although 91.4% (n = 285) of the respondents no longer store food in unattended homes, brown bears were reported to still frequently approach winter homes for food due to improper disposal of dead livestock and household garbage. The frequency and abundance of marmots were found to be high in brown bear diet, indicating that marmots were the bears' primary food. However, marmot density had no significant effect on brown bears utilizing human food (P = 0.329), and HBC appears to not be caused by natural food shortages. Distance to rocky outcrops (P = 0.022) and winter homes (P = 0.040) were the key factors linked to brown bears pursuing human food. The number of brown bears has increased over the past decade, and HBC is likely linked to its population recovery. Our findings will provide scientific basis for formulating effective mitigation measures and protection countermeasures for brown bears.
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•HBC is related to changes in herder settlement practice and living habits.•Brown bears have learned to utilize the food in unattended homes.•HBC appears to not be caused by a shortage of natural food resources.•Brown bears tend to look for human-related food near winter homes closer to rocky outcrops.•HBC may also be linked to strict wildlife conservation programs and high standards of ecological restoration.
Brown Bear a Symbol of Past and Present Anuțoiu, Ana-Gabriela; Danțiș, Dragoș; Ionescu, Ovidiu
Proceedings of the ... International Conference on Business Excellence,
06/2024, Letnik:
18, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
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The brown bear subject has been characterized lately by an increased level of research complexity. Inside current article the brown bear will benefit from a broader assessment of its modern history ...and representation, showing that it can be understood as a symbol over time. The historical representation will be related to the evaluation of the existing literature, offering a multitude of mythological and folklore meanings, starting from King Ragnar to the Bear Dance, proving the animal was present in the daily life of people from different parts of the world. Through the details displayed, the meanings of bear will be understood, showing the value of this symbol in history. This is similar to the presence of the constellation
(Great Bear) among the other stars in the sky.
Contemporarily it will be seen that the perception has changed today and what was previously deified is now stigmatized and brutalized. According to a survey conducted in Covasna and Brașov counties, 52% of the respondents expressed fear of bears, with 19% saying that they feel terrorized by them. As a result, people from Romania and from other countries use both non-lethal and lethal measures to solve possible conflicts with bears. In the Central Region of Romania, 220 preventive actions were taken from 2021 to 2022 to keep bears away from human settlements. Between 2017 and 2022, 4.405 phone calls were made to the 112 National Emergency Service reporting the presence of bears, while 154 bears were found dead for unknown reasons.
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.
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DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
When animals are faced with extraordinary energy-consuming events, like hibernation, finding abundant, energy-rich food resources becomes particularly important. The profitability of food resources ...can vary spatially, depending on occurrence, quality, and local abundance. Here, we used the brown bear (Ursus arctos) as a model species to quantify selective foraging on berries in different habitats during hyperphagia in autumn prior to hibernation. During the peak berry season in August and September, we sampled berry occurrence, abundance, and sugar content, a proxy for quality, at locations selected by bears for foraging and at random locations in the landscape. The factors determining selection of berries were species specific across the different habitats. Compared to random locations, bears selected locations with a higher probability of occurrence and higher abundance of bilberries (Vaccinium myrtillus) and a higher probability of occurrence, but not abundance, of lingonberries (Vaccinium vitis-idaea). Crowberries (Empetrum hermaphroditum) were least available and least used. Sugar content affected the selection of lingonberries, but not of bilberries. Abundance of bilberries at random locations decreased and abundance of lingonberries increased during fall, but bears did not adjust their foraging strategy by increasing selection for lingonberries. Forestry practices had a large effect on berry occurrence and abundance, and brown bears responded by foraging most selectively in mature forests and on clearcuts. This study shows that bears are successful in navigating human-shaped forest landscapes by using areas of higher than average berry abundance in a period when abundant food intake is particularly important to increase body mass prior to hibernation. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT: Food resources heterogeneity, caused by spatial and temporal variation of specific foods, poses a challenge to foragers, particularly when faced with extraordinary energy-demanding events, like hibernation. Brown bears in Sweden inhabit a landscape shaped by forestry practices. Bilberries and lingonberries, the bears’ main food resources in autumn prior to hibernation, show different temporal and habitat-specific ripening patterns. We quantified the bears’ selective foraging on these berry species on clearcuts, bogs, young, and mature forests compared to random locations. Despite a temporal decline of ripe bilberries, bears used locations with a greater occurrence and abundance of bilberries, but not lingonberries. We conclude that bears successfully navigated in this heavily human-shaped landscape by selectively foraging in high-return habitats for bilberries, but did not compensate for the decline in bilberries by eating more lingonberries.
Animal personality traits and the emergence of behavioural syndromes, i.e. between-individual correlation of behaviours, are commonly quantified from behavioural observations in controlled ...environments. Subjecting large and elusive wildlife to controlled test situations is, however, rarely possible, suggesting that ecologists should exploit alternative measures of behaviours for quantifying differences between individuals. Our goal was to test whether movement and space use data can be used to quantify behavioural syndromes in the wild. We quantified six behaviours from GPS and dual motion sensor tracking devices of 46 adult female brown bears followed in southcentral Sweden over the summer and early autumn. As well as daily travel distance, an indicator for activity, and daily displacement, an indicator for exploration, we quantified four behaviours that increase a bear's likelihood of encountering humans and could thus serve as indicators for boldness: diurnality, selection for roads and selection for two open habitat types, bogs and clearcuts, with low lateral cover. We tested (1) whether behaviours showed repeatable between-individual variation (animal personality) and (2) whether behaviours were correlated between individuals and thus formed a behavioural syndrome. Repeatability of behaviours ranged from 0.16 to 0.61 confirming between-individual variation in movement, activity and space use. A multivariate mixed model revealed significant positive correlations between travel distance, displacement and diurnality, suggesting the existence of an activity–exploration and potentially partial boldness syndrome in our bear population. Selection for exposed or human-frequented habitats were uncorrelated with the activity–exploration syndrome and with each other, albeit there was a trend for stronger road avoidance by bears that readily used clearcuts. We show that large tracking data sets can be used to quantify between-individual correlation in spatial behaviours. We suggest that delineating behavioural types from wildlife tracking data will be of increasing interest because of the importance of animal personality for ecological processes, wildlife conservation and human–wildlife coexistence.
•We tested whether bears showed personality in remotely quantified behaviours.•Bears showed repeatability in movement, diurnality and habitat selection.•Movement behaviours and diurnality were significantly correlated between individuals.•Habitat selection behaviours were uncorrelated with the movement activity syndrome.•Movement data are useful to assess animal personalities and behavioural syndromes.
‘Adaptive management’, which has been defined as the repeated iteration between management action, scientific assessment and revised management action, leading to a strengthened foundation for ...management, is required by Swedish law to be incorporated into the management of large carnivores. We have evaluated whether the size and/or trend of the brown bear Ursus arctos population in Sweden corresponded to management-decided national objectives during five management regimes during the past 70 years (1943—2013). We found that the objective had been met in only one period, when it had been worded very vaguely. During the last period studied (2008—2013), when management was carried out on the county level and adaptive management was required by the Swedish Government, four of six counties met their trend objectives, but only one of six met the population objectives, although one was close to meeting them. Sociological studies have documented major problems in communication among the members of the county delegations responsible for the management of large carnivores. As adaptive management apparently never has been implemented successfully in brown bear management in Sweden, we recommend that the Delegations for Game Management be mandated to integrate up-to-date, scientifically documented biological information into their decisions. This is not done consistently today. Researchers should be involved in the process to inform about relevant, available information, design testable scientific ‘experiments’ based on the predicted results of management decisions, and evaluate the results in relation to the predictions, perhaps as members of a ‘boundary organization’ consisting of researchers, managers and stakeholders. This would require a new management paradigm, because many in Sweden seem to be skeptical to the idea of involving researchers in management.
Brown bears (Ursus arctos) spend about half of the year in winter dens. In order to preserve energy, bears may select denning locations that minimize temperature loss and human disturbance. In ...expanding animal populations, demographic structure and individual behavior at the expansion front can differ from core areas. We conducted a non-invasive study of male brown bear den sites at the male-biased, low-density western expansion front of the Scandinavian brown bear population, comparing den locations to the available habitat. Compared to the higher-density population core in which intraspecific avoidance may affect den site selection of subordinate bears, we expected resource competition in the periphery to be low, and all bears to be able to select optimal den sites. In addition, bears in the periphery had access to free-ranging domestic sheep during summer. We found that males in the periphery denned on high-elevation slopes, probably providing good drainage, longer periods of consistent, insulating snow cover and fewer melting-freezing events. Forests were the principal denning habitat and no dens were found in alpine areas. The Scandinavian brown bears have a history of intense harvest, including culling at the den. This may have exerted a selection pressure to avoid denning in open alpine habitat which compared to forests provide little cover. The bears denned away from main roads and in steep, rugged terrain, probably limiting human access. The odds for finding a bear den decreased with increasing distance to the population core where females could be found. Previous studies have documented directed movement of male brown bears from the male-biased population periphery toward the core areas during the mating season. In this way, denning males may be trading off between low resource competition and access to sheep in the low-density periphery, and mating opportunities in the higher-density population core.
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DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Mammals exhibit several types of diel activity pattern, including nocturnal, diurnal, crepuscular, and cathemeral. These patterns vary inter- and intra-specifically and are affected by environmental ...factors, individual status, and interactions with other individuals or species. Determining the factors that shape diel activity patterns is challenging but essential for understanding the behavioral ecology of animal species, and for wildlife conservation and management. Using camera-trap surveys, we investigated the species distributions and activity patterns of terrestrial mammals on the Shiretoko Peninsula, Hokkaido, Japan, with particular focus on brown bears and sika deer. From June to October 2019, a total of 7,530 observations were recorded by 65 camera-traps for eight species, including two alien species. The diel activity pattern of brown bears was diurnal/crepuscular, similar to that of bears in North America, but different from European populations. Bear observations were more frequent during the autumnal hyperphagia period, and adult females and sub-adults were more diurnal than adult males. In addition, bears inside the protected area were more diurnal than those outside it. These findings suggest that appetite motivation, competitive interactions between conspecifics, and human activities potentially affect bear activity patterns. Similar to other sika deer populations and other deer species, the diel activity patterns of sika deer were crepuscular. Deer showed less variation in activity patterns among months and sex-age classes, while adult males were observed more frequently during the autumn copulation period, suggesting that reproductive motivation affects their activity patterns.
Background. At the present time there is an increase in the number and resettlement of the brown bear (Ursus arctus) in a southerly direction, including Penza region. The appearance of a large ...predator in densely populated areas of the forest-steppe region is of considerable interest. The purpose of the study is to summarize the reliable facts of the habitat and identify the features of bear distribution in Penza region during 2018–2022. Materials and methods.We used information about the cases of the bear’s stay, documented (photographs of animals, paw prints, traces of vital activity) and received from specialists in the field of hunting and nature management. Results. In total, over a five-year period, 25 cases of a bear staying in 9 districts were recorded. The predator inhabited most of the large forest areas of the region, spreading to the south to 52°46′ N, which is the southern limit of the bear’s range in the Volga region.Conclusions.The presence of animals of different ages, including cubs, and the sighting of tracks in early spring and late autumn suggest the beginning of the establishment of the species in new territories in the south of the forest-steppe zone.
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