By Sam Steyaert
Abstract
Livestock depredation is a fundamental aspect altering human’s perception of large carnivores and in the past has contributed to justify large carnivore eradication programs with local extirpations as a consequence. In central Sweden, brown bears (Ursus arctos) coexists with traditional livestock husbandry of dairy cattle, which range freely during daylight hours during the grazing season, from mid May to mid September. Bear-cattle conflicts in Sweden were reported to be amongst the lowest in Europe. We hypothesized that bears in the study area do not actively prey on cattle, and that conflicts occur by chance through coexistence. We analyzed and related resource selection of 7 GPS marked cattle herds, co-existing with 11 GPS marked bears during the grazing season, to define encounter –and potential conflict- risk areas and determinative factors. We found that bears and cattle utilize their resources in a spatiotemporal different way, driven by inverse responses to human activity related variables, vegetation densities and land cover types. Additionally, the type of livestock husbandry prevented nocturnal free ranging, avoiding activity peaks of bears, and reducing encounter probabilities. The traditional way of cattle husbandry appeared to be suitable to co-exist with brown bears in Scandinavia but depredation losses can however not be excluded.