At the end of November, WWF Romania launched
\nthe online campaign Bears with Cameras. The campaign is part of a wider project
\naimed at monitoring large carnivore species in Romania, conducted by WWF and
\nits partners as part of the LIFE# EuroLargeCarnivores project. Nature
\nloves can follow on social media the first recordings made from the point of
\nview of carnivores themselves, with the help of special video cameras equipped
\non their collars. The recordings were made over August-October using a number
\nof brown bears in a pilot activity. Gavril Marius Berchi, project manager with WWF
\nRomania, told us more:<\/p>\n
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People know
\nlittle about the social life of bears due to certain difficulties that prevent
\nlong-term research of their behavior. By means of a European project, EuroLarge
\nCarnivores, we wanted to study these aspects more closely. We managed to equip
\nthree video collars on three species of brown bears: a 4-year male that
\nfrequently enters the area of T\u00e2rgu
\nMure\u0219, and who had to be relocated to C\u0103limani Mountains, and two younglings, a male and a female, each
\none-year old or so, who live at the Bear Again orphanage in Harghita County. <\/p>\n
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Gavril Marius
\nBerchi also told us what they saw when they retrieved the video collars. <\/p>\n
\n
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We noticed
\nthe young bears can fend for themselves. They are basically orphans, each
\nabandoned for various reasons. They can procure their own food, they socialize
\nand live together. After they get released into the wild, they will live together
\nfor a while, then they will separate and live in isolation. As regards the
\nthird bear, the adult male, what was interesting to notice was that he didn’t
\nreturn to his original place, and travelled a distance of some 500 kilometers
\nin Romania. <\/p>\n
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When talking about the management of large
\ncarnivores, it’s important to know that once relocated, bears don’t return to
\ntheir original place and can travel large distances over short periods of time,
\nwhich makes any census a difficult task, Gavril Marius Berchi told us. <\/p>\n
\n
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According to our data, the bear had destroyed
\na few bee hives. He travelled over 500 kilometers in Romania, then he crossed
\nthe border into Ukraine, all within the space of a month and a half. He spent
\nanother month and a half in Ukraine, at which point we lost connection. The
\nonly damaged he caused was to a few bee hives in Romania and Ukraine. <\/p>\n
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\n
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The emitter on the bear’s collar might have gone
\nhaywire, or possibly the bear was shot, so the data was incomplete. <\/p>\n
\n
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Apart from the information we got about the
\nsocial behavior of the bear, we also wanted to get more information regarding his
\nuse of various natural bear habitats, the territory he transited, the routes he
\ntook, the obstacles he came across, the functionality of green corridors, because
\nwe have a number of ongoing projects aimed at identifying possible green
\ncorridors in the Carpathians, and we are very interested to see which of them
\ncan become functional. Additionally, we would have wanted to see the bear’s
\ninteractions with other species or human settlements. Unfortunately, the bear
\ngot lost in Ukraine. <\/p>\n
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\n
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Bears are attracted to areas with easy access
\nto food in populated areas, especially where settlements with a poor waste
\nmanagement or where animals run out of food due to the extensive exploitation
\nof natural resources (for instance mushrooms or wild berries). Accordingly, the
\nbears are perceived as a threat. And since the winter holidays are drawing near,
\nwe can choose a Christmas present and buy a WWF plush animal. All purchases will
\nhelp protect Romania’s wildlife. Gavril Marius Berchi told us more about this
\ninitiative: <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Our conservation projects lack the necessary
\nfunds, and for certain activities we don’t always get to cover all the expenses.
\nSo, by buying a plush animal, the donor gets a toy, and we manage to cover some
\nof our costs. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A recent initiative of WWF Romania<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":126,"featured_media":136929,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42520],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-136928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inside-romania"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n