Die Bären von Slovenien

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"Bären Management"

culling bears in Slovenia

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Die Bären von Slovenien - Politischer Erklärungsversuch zur Legitimation der Bären-Jagd

Clarification of the brown bear cull in Slovenia in 2002 for the Bern Convention Standing Committe Meeting

Written by: Marko Jonozovic, BSC Forestry
Head of the Department for Wildlife Slovenia Forest Service
Jože Sterle for the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Food
Mladen Berginc for the Ministry of the Environment,
Spatial Planning and the Energy

10.02.03

Auszug in deutsch

3. The management of the bear population in Slovenia at present

Reasons for the increased cull of bears in 2002

Why the decision to cull more bears in 2002?

Problems connected with the coexistence of man and bear in Slovenia have started to increase particularly over the last five to seven years and have escalated in the last two to tree years.

There are a number of reasons for this, which cannot be wholly explained, as experts provide assessments of the reasons from their own particular point of view and cannot agree either on the reasons themselves or their relative importance.

It is unarguable that the Slovene bear population is progressively increasing, as is the area in which they live. These two reasons, alongside other as yet unnamed ones, have led to difficulties. Today, the number of bears in Slovenia exceeds the sustainable capacity of their environment and problems involving bears have turned the image of the species into a negative one.

How do we ascertain the number of bears?

The absolute number is not the only important factor, more significant is the population trend which is, as already mentioned, a progressive one. The absolute number is used only when it is necessary to decide in what way and how much to encroach into the population by culling, starting from the assessed number of bears, which again differs depending on the point of view.
Whether the number of bears can be simulated with various models or whether it is easier to assess it on the basis of "hard" facts derived from the actual monitoring of the population, is left to individual judgement.

The actual monitoring of the bear population in Slovenia means that the number of bears is ascertained via direct counts in relatively permanent places (bear feeding stations, feeding stations for wild boar, and other counting places) and via the daily monitoring indices in the Forests Institute of Slovenia professional game breeding areas in the central bear zone, encompassing an area of over 70,000 ha.

All hunting organisations in whose hunting grounds bears are permanently present participate in this, counting bears on the same day (on a moonlit night), two to three times a year. After the count, the collected forms are analysed and any sightings judged on the basis of the time they were recorded to be duplicated, are excluded. This method was devised a few years ago by Dr Miha Adamic, together with the Hunting Association of Slovenia.

With this count, it is possible to show the population trend, as well as determining the social structure of the population, that is the proportion of bears sighted involving female bears with cubs. We maintain that on the counting nights, when there are also optimum weather conditions, it is possible to sight and count at the feeding stations up to 70% of the bear population. After the count, hunting organisations fill another part of the form, where they estimate the number of bears more or less constantly present in their hunting grounds, which were not spotted during the count. And this produces the difference between the numbers recorded (the number of animals actually counted - the assessed number). The results of the counts over the last three years are shown in the following table:

Bears in Slovenia	2002
	Cubs per female 1,86 Cubs in their 1st/2nd year 186 Females 100 Counted in total 468 No. of counting locations 372 Assessed number 894 Auszug in deutsch

Comparing all the counts, the most interesting is the number in the last column - the number of cubs per female (in their 1st and 2nd year) - which is very stable, most often around 1.8 to 2 cubs per female, the lowest number - only 1.71 - occurring in April 2000, and the highest - 2.33 - in May 2000.
The number of bears counted (since 2000) was highest in the last count, as was the assessed number of bears, which additionally confirms the thesis about the progressive growth of the population. We estimate, that the annual increment of bears (newly born) in Slovenia is between 100 and 150.

It should be mentioned here that we estimate the survival level of cubs to be very high, the main reason being the sufficiency of both natural food and food offered to bears by man (at feeding stations, etc.).

::damages by bears::