Within the 28th IBA conference (https://conference.bearbiology.org), with our colleagues from Bears in Mind (https://www.bearsinmind.org/en/home-english/) and Foundation for Bears (https://www.baer.de), we co-organized the workshop under the abovementioned title, held on 15th of September this year. The aim of this workshop was to address the timely issue of wild problem bears coming into captivity. Our discussion focused around the recent cases of Italian authorities forced for an option of placing problem bears at sanctuaries. This has also been exercised before and under public pressure. We discussed this experience in detail including the demanding placement of such bears in captivity from the animal welfare point of view, but also keeping conditions, costs involved, and public outreach. Facilitated discussions were moderated by Dr. Alistair Bath, a veteran facilitator in Human Dimensions in wildlife management. Following the introduction by Dr. Bath we listened to presentations from Dr. Claudio Groff (coordinator of the large carnivore division from the Autonomous Province of Trentino in Italy), Bernd Nonnenmacher (director of the Foundation for Bears in Germany), Csaba Domokos (coordinator of the bear program at Milvus Group in Romania), Colleen Olfenbuttel (a bear biologist for the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission) and Angela Gibson (zoological manager at Oakland Zoo and director on Bear Care Group Board of Directors). Presentations were followed by discussions within working groups and then sharing conclusions and experiences. The overarching message from the workshop participants is that decisions about lifetime captivity are complex and will need to be made on a case-by-case basis, sensitive to the welfare of the individual bear, and the cultural context of the location. Wild bears might have stronger motivation to try to escape the enclosure and might really suffer in captivity. In such cases a lifetime in captivity is usually not the best option and euthanasia is to be considered.
By Agnieszka Sergiel