{"id":2668,"date":"2025-06-11T10:01:05","date_gmt":"2025-06-11T08:01:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carpathianbear.pl\/?p=2668"},"modified":"2025-06-11T10:01:05","modified_gmt":"2025-06-11T08:01:05","slug":"a-conservation-success-story-with-a-challenge-human-pressure-reduces-space-use-of-brown-bears-in-europe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/carpathianbear.pl\/en\/2025\/a-conservation-success-story-with-a-challenge-human-pressure-reduces-space-use-of-brown-bears-in-europe\/","title":{"rendered":"A conservation success story with a challenge: human pressure reduces space use of brown bears in Europe"},"content":{"rendered":"

The return of large carnivores to Europe\u2019s human-dominated landscapes is a major conservation success, yet it brings its own set of challenges. In our recent study published in Global Change Biology<\/em>, we present the first comprehensive overview of how human footprint effects govern the spatial behaviour of a recolonising large carnivore, the brown bear, across Europe’s highly fragmented and human-dominated landscape.<\/p>\n

By analysing movement data from hundreds of GPS-collared bears from eight of the ten existing brown bear populations in Europe, we found that human footprint restricted bear space use while higher proportions of forest cover promoted movement, especially in central and southern Europe. These patterns support the mounting evidence that points to a global restructuring of animal movement caused by the intensification of human activities1-3<\/sup>.<\/p>\n

Why It Matters: <\/strong>As brown bears continue to recolonise fragmented landscapes across Europe, maintaining connectivity between populations is critical. Restricted movements can not only slow the recovery of small, isolated populations in the Pyrenees and Apennines but also restrict inter-population connectivity and reduce genetic exchange \u2014 such as between the Dinaric-Pindos and Carpathian populations in Serbia or between the Alpine and Dinaric-Pindos populations in the Alps. Reducing human impacts on animal movement will be crucial to ensure the successful future conservation of these populations and the functioning and resilience of the ecosystems they inhabit.<\/p>\n

There is still much to be explored\u00a0 \u2014 visit \u00a0https:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1111\/gcb.70011<\/a> for all the details.<\/p>\n

This study is a result of international collaboration with our colleagues from the Ludwig-Maximilians University of Munich, Institute of Nature Conservation of the Polish Academy of Sciences, University of South-Eastern Norway, University of G\u00f6ttingen, University of Ljubljana and more than 30 stakeholders (governmental agencies, research institutions, NGOs, protected\u2010area administrations, and universities) from 13 European countries that have collected data on this species for decades.<\/p>\n

by Aida Parres<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

References:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Doherty, T. S., G. C. Hays, and D. A. Driscoll. 2021. \u201cHuman Disturbance Causes Widespread Disruption of Animal Movement.\u201d Nature Ecology & Evolution 5, no. 4: 513\u2013519. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1038\/s41559-020-01380-1.<\/li>\n
  2. Mumme, S., A. D. Middleton, P. Ciucci, et al. 2023. \u201cWherever I May Roam\u2014Human Activity Alters Movements of Red Deer (Cervus elaphus) and Elk (Cervus canadensis) Across Two Continents.\u201d Global Change Biology 29, no. 20: 5788\u20135801. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1111\/gcb.16769.<\/li>\n
  3. Tucker, M. A., K. B\u00f6hning-Gaese, W. F. Fagan, et al. 2018. \u201cMoving in the Anthropocene: Global Reductions in Terrestrial Mammalian Movements.\u201d Science 359, no. 6374: 466\u2013469. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1126\/science.aam9712<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The return of large carnivores to Europe\u2019s human-dominated landscapes is a major conservation success, yet it brings its own set of challenges. In our recent study published in Global Change Biology, we present the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2669,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sitemap_exclude":false,"_sitemap_priority":"","_sitemap_frequency":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carpathianbear.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carpathianbear.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carpathianbear.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carpathianbear.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carpathianbear.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2668"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/carpathianbear.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2668\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2671,"href":"https:\/\/carpathianbear.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2668\/revisions\/2671"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carpathianbear.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carpathianbear.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carpathianbear.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carpathianbear.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}