We welcome Manuel Díaz Fernández, who is conducting a 3-month internship with us at the Institute of Nature Conservation (IOP PAN). Manu is a doctoral student at Estación Biológica de Doñana (EBD-CSIC) in Seville, Spain. His research interests lie in the ecology and behaviour of large carnivores and their interactions with humans. In his PhD, he focuses on the study of how the small Cantabrian brown bear population has grown and recovered in part of its distribution and how this increase in abundance and distribution affects its interactions with humans. He approaches these questions from an ecological and also a social point of view.
During his internship, Manu will analyze the spatial and temporal patterns and correlates of damage made by brown bears to apiaries in the Cantabrian Mountains. He aims to model and map the risk of brown bear damage to detect areas with high probability for damage. Identifying such risky areas can help managers in the Cantabrian Mountains to reduce losses due to damage through preventive measure and ultimately promote human-bear coexistence.
Many will give us a talk on 14th November 12pm entitled “Bears in periurban and agricultural landscapes: an ecological and social approach to the new conservation challenges of the Cantabrian brown bear population”