Successful conservation of brown bears (Ursus arctos) in Europe is associated with public acceptance of damages caused by bears. Recent increases in sheep depredation and beehive damage in central Austria resulted in the deaths of two bears there. Since bear numbers are low in most European populations, alternatives to the elimination of problem bears associated with damage incidents must be sought. The events described above led to the formation of the Bear Management Group responsible for designing a management plan for Austria that will outline procedures for dealing with bear damage and conservation strategies. This study provides an overview of the magnitude and seasonal patterns of brown bear damage in Romania, Italy, Slovenia, Norway, Sweden, and Austria. It also illustrates how bears are managed in European countries by comparing different management strategies for dealing with brown bear damage, describing how bear management is organized, determining which organizations are involved, and explaining which duties these fulfill. Bear damage data were obtained from interviews with wildlife managers, hunters, and farmers in Romania, Italy, Slovenia, Norway, Sweden, and Austria, and from official records of their bear management agencies. Most damage incidents involved sheep and beehives in all countries. All countries offered a more or less well functioning damage compensation program to farmers. Conservation success, especially for small bear populations, seemed to be related to a good compensation program and reducing damage to livestock and property. Possible improvements of management strategies to reduce damage and increase conservation success in theses countries were discussed The second part of this study was the assessment of the organizational structure of different bear management programs in Europe. Brown bear management in Europe included a broad spectrum of goals, ranging from no protection, to regulated hunting, to total protection. In each country, different organizations were involved in bear management, including private and governmental organizations. For each study country, I outlined which organizations were involved in bear management, determined if a management plan existed,described if and how hunting and damage compensation were structured, explained how each country dealt with problem bears, and finally, detailed what kind of management problems each country encountered. I tried to find management patterns for bear management in Europe, including advantages and disadvantages of each approach and their effectiveness within the countries they were applied. Methods included a content analysis of interviews with wildlife managers, farmers, and local people in each country.Results showed that two general types of management approaches could be identified. Romania, Sweden and Southern Slovenia took a conservationist approach, which was characterized by economic use of their bear population. All of these countries had viable bear populations. Romania and Southern Slovenia included an additional characteristic of feeding bears, which could be viewed as a utilitarian management scheme. The second management approach, which was classified as the preservationist approach, was observed in Norway, Italy, Northern Slovenia, and Austria. This management strategy was characterized by year-long protection of bears, low population numbers, and no feeding of bears. Further results of management differences in problem bear management, damage compensation, public education, and effectiveness of management approaches were summarized. The study provides a reference on bear management strategies in Europe. / Master of Science

The social behavior of brown bears (Ursus arctos) was studied during the summers of 1972 and 1973 as bears fished for salmon at McNeil River, Alaska. Study objectives were to determine behavioral characteristics of bears in relation to sex and age, changes in social behavior over a 40-day long fishing season, social and environmental parameters correlated with the occurrence of behavior, and to test the hypothesis that brown bears modify social behavior in a feeding aggregation to exploit a resource limited in time and space. Over one-half of the agonistic interactions consisted of passive deferrals. Encounters that included elements of overt threat were jawing, sparring, charges, and fighting. Jawing was the most prevalent agonistic encounter and generally occurred between individuals of the same sex and age class. Sparring, charges and fights were generally initiated by larger bears against smaller individuals. Females with young were most intolerant. Adult males participated in few encounters that involved overt threat since most bears avoided them. Single adult and adolescent females were neither particularly aggressive nor especially tolerant. Adolescent males adjusted quickly to McNeil Falls and as a group were unaggressive. Subadults were wary and frequently were the objects of aggression of older bears. Social dominance relationships between bears of the same class were often ambiguous, the exception being adult males. Relationships between bears of different classes were mostly stable; adult males were dominant, followed in order by females with young, single adult females, adolescents, and subadults. However, apparent reversals also were common between single adult females and adolescent males. Nonagonistic encounters occurred only when salmon were exceptionally abundant and usually involved adolescent and subadult bears. Behavioral changes over time included a decline in the frequency of running deferrals, a decline in deferrals in total, and a decline in the frequency of charges. The occurrence of fighting and sparring encounters did not change, but the frequency of jawing increased within each fishing season. Various factors determined salmon caught by a bear per hour of fishing effort: salmon abundance, water levels, time of day, and fishing location. The time of day a bear could fish and its choice of location depended on its ability to gain and defend a profitable site. Fishing success was directly correlated with social status, but differences in success are probably unimportant in terms of individual fitness except when salmon are relatively scarce. Changes in encounter intensity over time had no detectable effect on fishing success. Salmon abundance, however, resulted in a further reduction of agonistic encounter intensity and an increase in nonagonistic encounters. Bear social relationships were governed largely by variations in resource abundance. Despite energetic and psychological costs imposed by the bear concentration on individual animals, salmon were evidently sufficiently numerous that these costs were outweighted by returns in protein. Dominance relationships at McNeil Falls did not correspond to predictions of classical dominance theory. This may have been partially attributable to the fact that bears in aggregations derive no benefits from tacit acceptance of subordinate roles; a bear's alternatives were to compete and gain access to food or, if unsuccessful, to try elsewhere. To pose the question if normally solitary bears can adapt behaviorally to efficiently exploit a localized source of food may have been inappropriate. Alternatively, bears can be viewed as occupying and defending areas akin to small territories, with their behavior explicable in terms of energetic costs and benefits based on variations in resource abundance.