Brown bears

We spent this morning discussing the conservation of the brown bear and looked at the breakdown of brown bear populations across Europe.

Before we get to the Europe-specific stuff though, I thought it would be useful to explain a little about bears in general…

There are eight species of bear living throughout the world, apart from Australia, Africa and Antarctica.

WSPA has a 'bears of the world' PDF that you can download for more about the world's bears - brown bears are on page 5 >> 

The International Union for Conservation of Nature lists six of the world’s eight species of bear as vulnerable or endangered and inevitably this sadly means that bears are faced with a wide range of threats to their welfare.

I often get asked why there are no bears in Africa and Antarctica, as there are definite spots around the world where you will just never see a bear, so I have time to shed some light on that!

There used to be bears in parts of northern Africa, but they are believed to have been hunted out of existence during the times of the Roman Empire.  The Romans used to capture bears and use them in staged battles in the Roman Coliseums throughout the Mediterranean area.

Research shows that brown bears once lived around the Atlas Mountains in Morocco and Libya and there have been claims that bears may still live in remote areas in this region.

Although bear species have dispersed to many regions of the earth, they never managed to reach Australia or Antarctica. 

Bears once lived in the north of Africa but there is no evidence they moved into central or southern Africa. Having crossed the land bridges from Asia into North America, they dispersed right through the USA and Canada and also down into South America where today the Spectacled bear is still found in the Andes Mountains areas as far south as Bolivia.

But back to Europe, where the expansion of cities has greatly destroyed their habitat and now in Europe there are only small areas where bears are left.

There are now only around 300 bears left in the forests of Northern Greece, approximately 150 in Spain, and less than 100 in Italy.

France has even less, with an estimated population of less than 20 European brown bears. 

This is shocking when compared to the fact that 5000 bears still live in the Carpathian Mountains in Romania, where WSPA's sanctuary is situated.

We even used to have bears living in the UK, but the last bear was hunted and killed at least 1000 years ago. A big theme that will be recurring during the conference - as it affects almost all bear conservation and welfare work - is how people can live alongside bear populations further threatening them.

Back to join the conference now. In the meantime, if you want to learn more about the spread of different bear populations and species around the world, then here are some resources for you - hope you find them useful.

Download our Bears of the World map, to see where bears live >>

Download our Bears of the World fact sheets, to learn about the eight bear species >>

Comments

[K Croan]

How great to go to a conference on bears, the conferences i attend are very dull! Really appreciate the work you are doing for bears. THere are many animals that are struggling to survive because of our greed over resources but bears seem to be treated with a particular cruelty that is a sad reflection on us. I look forward to hearing more about the conference and the sanctuaries you have built

[marie roberts]

I wish you every success, just hope that we humans can learn that our animals have as many rights as our laws gave us, God Bless You, Good Luck

[Victor]

Thank you both for your kind comments. It was an amazing opportunity to share so much time with these experienced bear speciaists from all over the world. We all learned a lot from sharing scientific news and reports of field visits to bear habitat. I am looking forward to the next one and I hope that we can use some of our new knowledge between now and then to help bears around the world.
Cheers. Victor

[online writing jobs]

They are so cute! It is hard to believe that they are also death-maschines