Teresa Berezowska-Cnota from our team together with Svitlana Kudrenko from the Frankfurt Zoological Society have been awarded the Research and Conservation Grant, funded by the International Association for Bear Research and Management, for the second time! The project’s goal is to conduct the first systematic genetic monitoring of brown bears in the Ukrainian Carpathians and provide reliable estimates of the local population size.
This time, the team received funding for the project’s second phase. In the first one (in 2021), non-invasive methods were implemented to collect hair and faecal samples from brown bears inhabiting the Ukrainian Carpathians. Furthermore, cooperation with the Chornobyl Radiation and Ecological Biosphere Reserve was initiated, which resulted in conducting bear monitoring within the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone and collecting additional samples from this area. The gathered material will be analysed in the genetic laboratory of the Institute of Nature Conservation of the Polish Academy of Sciences under the project ‘Straddling bears: local population size and habitat suitability in a transboundary brown bear population hotspot in the Ukrainian Carpathians’.
International Association for Bear Research and Management https://www.bearbiology.org/