BROWN BEARS IN EUROPE: LOCAL VARIANTS, WHERE THEY LIVE, REWILDING, ISSUES

Brown Bears Populations in Europe

The largest brown bear population in Europe is in Russia, where there are an estimated 100,000 to 130,000 brown bears in three species. In Europe, there are almost 3,000 bears in Sweden, 2,000 in Finland, 1,100 in Estonia, around 100 in Norway, 6,000 in Romania, 2,500 in Slovakia, 1,200 in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia, 1,100 in Slovenia (1,100), and around 4,000 in North Macedonia, Bulgaria, Poland and Turkey. Small but still significant populations can also be found in Spain, Austria, Albania, Greece, Serbia and Montenegro and Ukraine. There is a small but growing population of at least 70 bears in the Pyrenees, on the border between Spain and France, which was once on the edge of extinction. There are also around 100 bears in the Abruzzo, South Tyrol and Trentino regions of Italy.

Brown bears could once be found across most of Eurasia. They have been long been extinct in Ireland and Britain. The small but growing population in the Pyrenees, on the border between Spain and France, was once on the edge of extinction but has rebounded thanks to bears introduced from Slovenia. There are two subpopulations in the Cantabrian Mountains in Spain (amounting to around 250 individuals). In Romania the number of bears rose from around 1,000 in the 1940s to 5,000 in the 1980s. About 3,000 live in Russian Karelia. Globally, the largest population is found east of the Ural mountain range in Asian Russia in the large Siberian forests. [Source: Wikipedia]

Populations in Baltoscandia are slowly increasing. They include almost 3000 bears in Sweden, another 2000 in Finland, 700 in Estonia and around 100 in Norway. Large populations can be found in Romania (around 6000 individuals), Slovakia (around 1200), Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia (1200), Slovenia (500-700), Macedonia, Bulgaria, Poland, Turkey, and Georgia; smaller but still significant populations can also be found in Albania, Greece, Serbia, Kosovo and Montenegro.[19] In 2005, there were an estimated 200 in Ukraine; these populations are part of two distinct metapopulations: the Carpathian with over 5000 individuals, and the Dinaric-Pindos (Balkans) with around 3000 individuals.[20]

Only 45-50 brown bears are found at any given time in Norway, which shares most of its population with Sweden. The Swedish population has grown from an estimated 294 animals in 1942 to over 1,000 in the early 2000s, and its range has increased as well. Finland, too, has been successful in restoring its brown bear population. Since the late 1970s, despite hunting pressures, the population has grown to more than 800 bears. [Source: barentsinfo.org]

Brown Bear Survival Strategies in Europe

Terry Domico and Mark Newman wrote in “Bears of the World”: In Europe brown bears developed their own strategy for surviving around civilization. Centuries of constant hunting severely decimated their numbers. In Britain they survived up to the Middle Ages. In most other European countries, brown bear populations were reduced to remnant levels by the end of World War II. Very few sanctuaries existed where the big bear could live without encountering people. The bears that did survive became very secretive and extremely clever at concealing themselves from people. [Source: “Bears of the World” by Terry Domico and Mark Newman, 1988]

In Norway, scientists discovered 17 separate populations of brown bears that had managed to escape notice. In the Brenta area of northern Italy, bears had become so scarce that local people assumed they were extinct. The occasional hunter’s story of seeing bear prints was openly scoffed at. Eventually, however, a Swiss researcher named Hans Roth managed to trap two of the wary animals, outfit them with radio transmitters and found that every aspect of their behavior was characterized by an attempt to avoid humans. They spent each day hidden in a different location, seldom leaving the woods, and foraging for food only at night. Much to the amazement of the people of Brenta, some 15 to 18 bears still lived in the area.

Brown Bears in Romania

Excluding Russia, Romania has more brown bears than other European country. It is estimated that there are about 6,000 animals (more that the lower 48 United States) and the majority of them are concentrated in Carpathian Mountains and Transylvanian Alps in the northern part of the country. The bears sometimes weigh as much as 700 pounds as look exactly like grizzly bears seen in Alaska or Yellowstone Park. The like eating berries and apples. [Source: Rick Bass, Men's Journal, April 1994]

In 1940, Romania had only about 900 bears. So how did there to get so many bears today? Well, the answer is that Nicolae Ceauescu — dictator and Romanian leader from 1965 to 1989 — Ceauescu enjoyed bear hunting, sometimes killing eight or nine of them a day. To provide himself with enough bears to hunt, he imported animals from Poland, organized an efficient captive-breeding programs and purchased zoo, gypsy and circus bears which were freed near the places he liked to hunt.

According to journalist Rick Bass, who visited Ceauescu's favorite "hunting" spot, Ceauescu "would bait the area with dead animals, horse meat and vegetables to keep the bears close, and each dusk when they came to eat, he'd shoot the shit out of them. Then he would have his picture taken next to the carcass and, if the bear was large enough apply to have his name entered in the record books."

One of the main reason that population grew so large is that Ceauescu made it illegal for anyone else to kill bears—even they threatened crops or livestock—except for wealthy foreigners who were allowed to pay around $20,000 for each bear shot.

Cantabrian Brown Bears

Cantabrian brown bears (Ursus arctos pyrenaicus) are also known as Iberian brown bears. They live on the Iberian Peninsula, primarily the Cantabrian Mountains and the hills in Galicia, and the Pyrenees. Rare, sporadic sightings have occurred in northern Portugal. Until recently, this brown bear population was considered a separate subspecies. Today, it is considered to belong to the subspecies Eurasian brown. [Source: Wikipedia]

Scientific evidence based on DNA studies indicates Eurasian brown bears can be divided into two distinct lineages. "There is a clear division into two main mitochondrial lineages in modern Eurasian brown bear populations. These populations are divided into those carrying an eastern lineage (clade IIIa, Leonard et al. 2000), which is composed of Russian, northern Scandinavian and eastern European populations, and those carrying a western lineage (clade I, Leonard et al. 2000), which is composed of two subgroups, one believed to originate from the Iberian Peninsula, including southern Scandinavian bears and the Pyrenean populations; and the other from the Italian–Balkan peninsulas (Taberlet et al. 1994; see however Kohn et al. 1995). In addition, based on the subfossil record in northwestern Moldova and mitochondrial DNA data from modern populations, a Carpathian refuge has also been proposed."

Even though the Cantabrian brown bear is one of the smallest of the brown bears, weighing between 92 and 180 kilograms (203 and 397 pounds) it is the largest wild animal on the Iberian Peninsula. The fur varies of these bears from pale cream to dark brown, but always with a distinctively darker, nearly black tone at the paws and a yellowish tinge at the tip of each hair. The Cantabrian brown bear population in Spain is considered endangered. The bear population in the Pyrenees stems mostly from bears reintroduced from Slovenia, with one or two remaining original males.

Introduction of Slovenian Bears to the French Pyrenees

A groups of Slovenian brown bears were turned loose in the Pyrenees mountains in 1996 as part of an attempt to restore the native population after hunting led to bears disappearing completely from Ariège and the rest of the central Pyrenees in the 1980s.

Adam Lusherb wrote in The Telegraph: The Worldwide Fund for Nature said that the plight of the brown bear in Western Europe was "catastrophic" and it was in greater danger of extinction than the giant panda. Attempts to boost numbers in the Pyrenees, however, aroused almost instant opposition. Two females, Mellba and Zivos, were introduced into the Haute Garonne area in 1996. [Source: Adam Lusherb The Telegraph, August 27, 2000]

Almost immediately Zivos wandered into neighboring Ariège and became the prime suspect for a spate of sheep deaths. The compensation awarded to farmers who lost livestock to bears failed to quell opposition. Graffiti declaring Non aux ours (No to the bears), started appearing on walls and cliff faces, especially after Pyros was introduced and the bears started breeding. In September 1997 Mellba was killed in Ariège by a man, who, it was claimed, had acted in self-defence during a hunting accident. In 1999 it was claimed that a bear was seen killing sheep just for the fun of it. Hints that there might be more "hunting accidents" followed. Months later, men, women and children marched through the small town of Foix carrying placards reading Tuons l'ours (Let's kill the bear). By September 1999 the mood was so ugly that Lionel Jospin, the prime minister, felt obliged to pay a visit to Ariège.

Conservationists argued that the key to man and bear living together in harmony is the return of the patou, the traditional Pyrenean guard dog, which became much less commonly used by shepherds as bear numbers dwindled to almost nothing. Roland Guichard of Artus, the organisation trying to protect the bears, said: "The bear is an opportunistic animal. If the guard dog is there, it won't go after the sheep." The farmers of Ariège, however, remain far from convinced. Josa Barbosa, who manages a flock of 250 sheep in the Orlu valley where 54 sheep were mauled in 1999, said: "This animal is bloodthirsty and carnivorous. It isn't a teddy bear."

Effort by Farmers in the French Pyrenees to Get the Slovenian Bears Deported

In March 2000, farmers and politicians in the Pyrenees ramped up their demands that the Slovenian bears released into the Pyrenees be deported from France by adding draft legislation, to that effect, sparking worldwide protests from conservationists. Local farmers had lobbied the French government to insert a clause in its latest hunting bill which allowed mayors to order the capture and deportation of any bear deemed a danger to livestock, and in 2000 they tried to invoke the measure to get rid of their unwanted neighbors.

Patrick Bishop wrote in The Telegraph: A Bill to capture and expel the newcomers was presented to parliament early yesterday, to the dismay of Green deputies who condemned the move as "contrary to nature". Denis Baupin, a Green spokesman, said: "The bear was always part of the landscape of the Pyrenees before it was exterminated." The stock of indigenous French bears in the mountains dwindled to only six through systematic hunting until the late Fifties. Most experts agree that the species cannot survive without an injection of foreign blood. In 1996, the government introduced three bears from Slovenia, cousins of the Pyrenean variety. [Source: Patrick Bishop, The Telegraph, March 30, 2000]

Despite their tiny number, their presence angers local sheep farmers and goat farmers, and getting rid of the bears has been a vote-catching issue for local politicians. Augustin Bonrepaux, Socialist deputy for the Ariège area, who is promoting the Bill, said they were responsible in 1999 for killing 200 sheep, three goats and two foals. The Bill's supporters claim that for the bears to survive the population will have to grow to 50, making the damage to livestock correspondingly greater.

In August 2000, the Slovenian brown bears in the French Pyrenees won a reprieve from deportation. Adam Lusherb wrote in The Telegraph: The bears' lucky escape only happened after their case was taken all the way to the highest court in France. The future of Zivos, Pyros and four cubs looked bleak after farmers in the impoverished Ariège area claimed that the Slovenian bears killed more than 200 sheep in 1999. The bears have, however, just been rescued by the Conseil Constitutionnel, the equivalent of America's Supreme Court. It has ruled that any deportation would be unconstitutional because it would defy European conservation directives. [Source: Adam Lusherb The Telegraph, August 27, 2000]

The farmers, struggling to make a living in one of the most rugged areas of France, are angry. French conservationists, however, now want to continue the reintroduction programme until there are 100 bears in the Pyrenees, where currently there are only about 10. Guichard said: "The hunters are furious; we are happy. The bear was always part of the landscape of the Pyrenees before it was exterminated. We would like to introduce more bears and see them multiply. It would be fantastic for tourism, but the bears' opponents don't understand this. For them, any wild animal is there to be killed. "It's a bit xenophobic.

Marsican Brown Bears

Marsican brown bears (Ursus arctos marsicanus) are also called Apennine brown bears. They live in Marsica, a historic area in Abruzzo in central Italy and are listed as critically endangered. There are an estimated 40 to 50 bears remaining in the Marsican area, with a range restricted to the Parco Nazionale d'Abruzzo, Lazio e Molise, and the surrounding region in Italy. There is a debated as whether they are a subspecies of Eurasian brown bears or not. With their numbers dwindling, the Italian government has recently begun to stress their conservation. The park where they live has become a sanctuary dedicated to reviving the Marsican brown bear and other animals. [Source: Wikipedia]

Marsican brown bears differs slightly from other brown bears in their appearance and hibernation techniques are a little different. Their large size, noticeably different forepaws to their rear are characteristics that help distinguish them from other brown bears Their footprints, hair residue, color of feces, and claw marks the bears leave are unique to this variant. Marsican brown bears do not engage in one continuous winter hibernation; they wakes at times and are less lethargic after they do wake up.

Marsican brown bears have a relatively calm temperament, with no aggression shown towards humans. In terms of size, Marsican brown bears are relatively large with males weighing around 217 kilograms (478 pounds). Females are significantly smaller, at around 140 kilograms (310 pounds). These bears are omnivorous (eat plants and animals), mainly eating berries, but occasionally eating small animals such as chickens and other livestock.

Rewilding Brown Bears in Europe

A pan-European study released in 2018 by the Leipzig-based Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) and the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) showed that there are many areas of Europe which have habitat suitable for brown bear recolonisation. While bears are currently missing from these areas — estimated by the study to cover 380,000 square kilometers — beneficial management of the species, such as a reduction in hunting pressure, would help Europe’s largest carnivore make a comeback here. “The facts speak for themselves,” says Alexandros Karamanlidis, a regional manager for Rewilding Europe. “Bear populations are currently expanding in almost every European country where the animals exist. The reasons for this comeback are complex, but if there wasn’t any suitable habitat this expansion simply wouldn’t be happening.” “I think the main takeaway is that we should expect and plan for bears come back to areas of their former range,” says Karamanlidis. “Obviously bears don’t recognise international borders. This means conservation efforts should be on a transborder scale.” [Source: rewildingeurope.com, August 14, 2018

According to rewildingeurope.com: As carnivores continue to make a comeback in Europe, people and predators are increasingly coexisting in the same landscapes. However, this coexistence is not without its challenges. “Preemptive action is a hugely important when it comes to mitigating conflict between bears and humans,” says Karamanlidis. In potential bear recolonisation areas such action includes raising people’s awareness and generating goodwill towards the animal, helping people to protect their property, and, in some cases, leveraging opportunities to develop sustainable, bear-based tourism. It should be noted that direct attacks by bears on humans are extremely rare, with the animal generally trying to avoid people.

With its large cities, modern infrastructure network and extensive areas under intensive agriculture, Europe seems an unlikely place for a large carnivore comeback. But despite this, a 2011 study commissioned by Rewilding Europe from the Zoological Society of London (and partners) found five European carnivore species — the brown bear, Eurasian lynx, wolverine, grey wolf and golden jackal — all expanding their range. In many areas of the continent, these animals are surviving and increasing outside protected areas. “This comeback, especially with regard to bears and wolves, shows the amazing resiience of these animals,” says Karamanlidis, who has been involved with the study of bear populations in Greece and across Europe for nearly 20 years. “Populations are returning in a human-dominated landscape.”

The arrival of large carnivores in European habitats where they were previously absent is having both an ecological and social impact. As these animals come into closer contact with humans, some conflict is inevitable. In the past, predation of livestock by carnivores was a major contributory factor in their decline. Such predation is often a symptom of depleted natural prey populations. “The weakest link in the European carnivore comeback is large herbivores,” says Karamanlidis. “One of the reasons Rewilding Europe is working so hard to reintroduce animals such as red deer and bison, which were removed by man, is to boost the natural prey base for carnivores.”

Brown bears are present in many of Rewilding Europe’s operational areas, as well as the sites of European Rewilding Network members. Karamandlidis says the results of the new study have implications for Rewilding Europe across many of its operational areas. In four of these areas — the Velebit Mountains, Central Apennines, Southern Carpathians and Lapland — brown bears are a resident species, while bears have also been spotted in the Rhodope Mountains. “Our rewilding work is typically based on the current status of individual species,” says Rewilding Europe’s regional manager. “But this study shows that bears are likely to push into new territory as they continue their comeback. This means that we need to plan for such territorial expansion, both in terms of protecting more habitat and in anticipating potential conflicts.”

Putting opportunities into a local context is vital to sustain carnivore comeback in Rewilding Europe’s rewilding areas. In the Central Apennines rewilding area, for example, Rewilding Europe and local partner Salviamo l’Orso are already carrying out a range of measures to preempt conflict between Marsican brown bears and local residents.

Rebounding Brown Bear Populations in Europe

Wild brown bear populations across Europe have bounced back from the brink of extinction, to around 15,000 to 17,000 bears today. But while animal conservationists are happy,a number of attacks on humans and livestock have led to increasing calls to drop the protections enjoyed by the species. [Source: Billy Stockwell, CNN, March 30, 2024]

The European Union enacted the Habitats Directive in 1992 to protect brown bears and other animals. Since then bears have made a steady comeback — from a point of near extinction in many areas to healthy numbers. But there have been issues. “The strengthened and expanding populations of brown bears have led to a growing impact on rural communities and livestock farming,” a 2024 report that wanted to downgrade protection for bears, said, adding that in Romania alone 240 bear attacks were reported between 2004 and 2021. It also states that interactions between farmers and bears have resulted in millions of euros in financial losses. [Source: Billy Stockwell, CNN, March 30, 2024]

Simon Sturdee of AFP wrote: Reintroduced in parts of western Europe in "rewilding" programmes brown bears have wandered far and wide. In northern Italy, 10 bears from the south-eastern European country of Slovenia were released in 1999. The population has since soared to 40-60 animals, some of whom have made it to Switzerland, Austria and Germany. Several have been killed.Other projects saw Slovenian bears transplanted to the Pyrenees mountains that straddle the Spanish-French border, where the population is estimated now at around 25. One of the most famous migrant bears —Balou — who was sponsored by the French actors Fanny Ardant and Gerard Depardieu, was found dead in 2014. [Source: Simon Sturdee, AFP November 16, 2014]

In eastern and south-eastern Europe, big predators never died out. There are 400-500 bears in Slovenia, a very small country, alone. Many there see them as an asset. In Bulgaria and Romania, tourists can go bear- and wolf-spotting. In the central Croatian region of Lika, 85 percent of people are in favour of bears, one survey showed. Carpathian National Nature Park, 700 kilometers from Kiev, hosts the biggest rehabilitation center for bears in Europe,

Problem Bears in Europe

Billy Stockwell of CNN wrote: A team of 14 armed officers with camera traps, a thermal imaging drone and a shoot-to-kill order ran through the woods earlier this month in search of a fugitive. But their target was no serial killer — it was a brown bear that had injured five people as it went on a rampage in a Slovakian town 10 days earlier. Dramatic social media footage showed the animal running through the streets of Liptovský Mikuláš as people fled for safety, prompting authorities to declare a state of emergency. [Source: Billy Stockwell, CNN, March 30, 2024]

Authorities in the town said in a Facebook post that the bear that carried out the attack had been hunted down and killed. But some critics in Slovakia are questioning whether they got the right bear. The incident in Liptovský Mikuláš came just days after another bear encounter ended in the death of a 31-year-old Belarusian tourist, who fell while trying to run away from the animal in Slovakia’s Low Tatras mountains, according to local media.

Recent research has found that some animals are more troublesome than others, displaying what experts call “repetitive conflict behaviour.” Perhaps the most famous example of this phenomenon was in the mid-2000s when a bear called Bruno, also known as Bear JJ1, was found looting beehives and attacking sheep in Germany, following his reintroduction as part of a conservation initiative.

In 2023 a bear in Italy, initially set to be killed for fatally mauling a 26-year-old woman, was given a reprieve after several wildlife agencies intervened. In another example, also in Italy, police opened an investigation after a man shot a female bear that had wandered onto his property. Her cub had become an internet sensation for roaming the streets, once even breaking into a bakery. He claimed that he shot the bear out of fear but didn’t want to kill it.

Problems with Rewilded Bears in Europe

Wolves have been rewilded in Europe like bears. Simon Sturdee of AFP wrote: But unlike wolves, which have also returned and have killed farm animals, bears have also been involved in isolated incidents with humans, including one in August when a man was injured in Italy. High on the hills above Nals in Italy's Alpine northern region of South Tyrol, for example, after losing four sheep to bear attacks this year, farmer's wife Monika Windegger is worried. "I am no fan of bears, that's for sure," she said as her husband showed AFP some bloody photos of sheep that had been mauled. "I am scared for my kids. Going for a walk now isn't as safe as it used to be." [Source: Simon Sturdee, AFP November 16, 2014]

"The bear is a wonderful animal but here in this populated area it can't work," local hunter Hans Gassebner, 72, whose buzzing bee hives are now surrounded by electric fence after a sweet-toothed bear wrecked them, told AFP. "People used to come hiking here but now you hardly see anybody because they are afraid," he said.

According to South Tyrol official Andreas Agreiter, who monitors the animals and compensates farmers — up to 300 euros ($375) per dead sheep — the public used to support the bears. "A few years ago two-thirds were in favour, but now, with all the negative press coverage, two-thirds are against," he told AFP in his Bolzano office. For Agreiter, the media and politicians — both of which have tended to exaggerate the problems — need to put things in perspective. And public information needs to improve. "In the last 10 years we have had 11 cases of a bear 'approaching'. But that doesn't mean an attack, it could just mean a few steps," he says. "Statistically it is more likely that a hiker will fall off a cliff, get hit by a car or attacked by a dog off the leash."

"Bears are among the most difficult of European animals to bring back and I do sympathise and recognise the problems," admits British environmentalist George Monbiot, a leading proponent of "rewilding". "But bears are extraordinary and wonderful beasts who are an essential component of the living system ... It would be a great tragedy, I think, if we can't find ways of living with them."

Changing Bear Conservation Laws in Europe?

A number of attacks on humans and livestock have led to increasing calls to drop the protections enjoyed by the species. Some countries are arguing that law lies too far in the bears’ favor at the expense of human lives. Billy Stockwell of CNN wrote: Several European Union (EU) countries who are in favor of watering down bear protections are now taking their fight to the bloc’s headquarters in Brussels. Delegations from Romania, Slovakia and Finland presented a proposal to the EU Environment Council, asking for the protection status of some brown bear populations to be downgraded. [Source: Billy Stockwell, CNN, March 30, 2024]

Current EU law prohibits the killing of wild bears except in very limited circumstances, such as when the animal has killed or maimed a human. Breaching this legislation could lead to hefty fines being imposed on non-compliant countries. How to deal with bear attacks have been on the political agenda of some of the EU’s 27 member countries for years. But the veto power of countries with more prominent conservation agendas — or those that don’t have bear populations — means it could be a while before bears are fair game for hunters once again.

Romania, Slovakia and Finland are pushing for certain bear populations — those with “favourable conservation status” — to be downgraded from “strictly protected” to “protected,” according to an information note sent to all delegations of the EU’s Environment Council after the recent attacks in Slovakia. Under both categories of protection there is the same obligation for countries to maintain “favorable” status, according to John Linnell, a senior researcher at the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research who specializes in the conservation of large carnivores. “What differs is the context in which you are allowed to kill things,” he told CNN. “Under ‘strictly protected,’ you have to have very specific reasons to kill an individual (animal)… If you’re only ‘protected,’ then you don’t have the same obligation to justify why.”

But some people argue that there are more humane ways to prevent bear attacks. Robin Rigg, chairman of the Slovak Wildlife Society, told CNN that preventative methods, such as electric fencing, can help deter bears from attractants, such as beehives, fruit trees and livestock. He said that if a particular bear is causing repeated issues, often known as a “problem individual,” current legislation already allows it to be removed from the population, without the need to change the species’ protection level.

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons