- Carpathians are the best refuge for Brown Bears
Ursus arctos arctos -The Eurasian Brown Bear is taking refuge in the last remaining virgin forests of Europe and could be considered to be called a sanctuary home for this specie . This ,,homeland,, is represented by mixed beach fir and spruce forests, corresponding usually to 1000 m level altitude on steep slopes, hideden valleys and remote forestland plateaus.
Available natural food determines if brown bears are going to forage on lower altitudes in hill zones or or high on Carpathian high altitude pasturelands. Carpathians are the perfect habitat for Brown bear conservation.
Classical context shows that Brown bears are strictly related to large surfaces of forests , in one piece and mostly conected to each other .This is a primordial condition to make conservation for bears possible. Bears are shy and quiet creatures and prefer to avoid stress caused by human activity.
The necessary large intact surfaces with forest is imposed by the brown bears etiology, dietary and territorial needs. These gentle giants need large amounts of food each day and undisturbed freedom of movement in order to fulfill dietary needs to survive. Brown bears follow a specific itinerary each day .The itinerary is design on previous experience and disturbances encountered, and adjusted weekly and even daily.
When foraging the individuals are proficient to obtain the best food quality in the shortest time possible. Any new barrier needs time to investigate and this is delaying or cutting the feeding time. This is why they avoid human contact and need undisturbed ranges to find food. Itineraries which provided the needed quantity of food are going to be used again..until the bear is forced by context to change the itinerary.
Nature does not care about the context but only on effect so bears do not care if food is natural and taken out of the woodlands or found nearby towns or villages, so grouping bears on feeding habits is an error, sadly ,sometimes a common error even among specialists or used to favor a specific context. Problems regarding bears were created in Romania due to around 230 bears raised at Rausor and released into the wild at Rausor in the 70s. Problematic bears today are mostly the descendants or mix breads of those bears raised by people, creating more or less this,, dietary category,, often mentioned.
Bears are specialized on foraging on specific food available locally being attached to a ,,homeland ,, territory. Territories can be inherited by mother line or occupied using dominance. Bears born into the wild avoid man and feed with natural food unless strongly provoked to change diet .
Local individuals are specialized geographically to exploit territory they live in and also specialized according to their personality to forage for a specific type of food. This specialization takes place in the early stages where mothers teach their cubs to forage, so good feeding behavior comes also with a ,,proper education,,. Also is better to map and group the territory on available food resources, including also human sources of food (livestock, human waste).
Natural food of brown bears is made of organic food, more than 80% and consists in selective plant grazing, coniferous buds and cones, berries, roots, big seeds, even mushrooms, and animal food like voles, birds, worms and larvae, ants and bees and mostly everything that contains sugars and fats. In one Year, depending on the season food comes in over quantities or in lack of quantities, bears facing sometimes seasonal critical periods.
Brown bears are territorial, and usually need a large territory between 300 and 600 hectares to survive, occasionally more. Size of individual territories is related to land use and forest composition and also competition and dominance with other bears.
GPS monitoring studies with radio-collar studies provided and published by the Romanian Institute of Research shows that that this territory has more or less an exclusive section and and an overlaid section with other individuals. Bears dominating one territory do not tolerate physically each other in natural refuge range being exclusively a solitary creature.
For example , honey made by wasps and bees is a enjoyable treat only in autumn by bears when the honey and larvae quantity is enough to worth the effort of being stung and digging in the ground. The bear is eating all honey content and hive structure, but almost always leaving a small bit untouched, often humans being stung next day passing by after the bears uncovered and damaged totally or partially the bee hives hidden on the ground over night.
Bears are perfectly adapted to live in the wild environments and perfectly integrated to do so and nutritional crisis do not last more than several weeks depending mainly on vegetation supply, and more than sure bears are able to compensate and the phenomenon is natural. Carpathian forests and hill pastureland are highly productive for bears so we cannot discuss of lack of food in the woods although temporary nutritional crisis can occur.
Occasionally bears make seasonal movements to other territories out of usual range to profit of food available in other areas, to get over nutritional crissis.
For example Brown bears can sniff if the acorns are ripe and the abundance of it from miles away, or if the orchards are ripped in the Sub-Carpathian Region over 60 km away from Brasov. Continuous daily monitoring done in the autumn of 2013 , had shown that in the interval of two or three days almost all the brown bear population left the usual territory ( 12 000 hectares) and large density of brown bears were reported in the Sub-Carpathian area, in the plum orchards. Most probably bears analyzed the air coming from the food surface. The naive authorities responded to bear pressure allowing local administration to shoot more bears in order to ,,keep people safe,, Ironically this ,, extraordinary legal procedure,, lasted for two weeks , just in time for ,,the furry ones” to finish the feast and return to homeland safely.
