A dispersing bear in Białowieża Forest raises important ecological and conservation management questions for the central European lowlands

Abstract

In Europe brown bears are currently largely confined to mountainous areas and eastern European refugia with sparse human populations. Poland typifies this distribution, with bears being present in the Carpathian Mountains, but absent from the lowlands. Recently large carnivore populations have been recovering throughout Europe, raising the question of the potential for bears to recolonize both the Polish and wider central European lowlands. The nearest population with good connectivity to the Polish lowlands is in central Belarus, where bears are currently expanding. In recent years there have been at least two undocumented sightings of bears in eastern Poland, such as in Białowieża Forest in 2010 and Augustów Forest in 2018. While carrying out a camera trap study in June 2019, we documented the first brown bear in the Polish part of Białowieża Forest since 1963. The individual apparently left for the Belarusian side of the forest, where a bear continued to be spotted several times over the following month. After over half a year of no signs of bears, on the April 1, 2020, a bear was recorded again on the Belarusian side of the forest. It is unknown whether this was the same individual. If the brown bear population in Belarus continues to expand, such visits of bears to eastern Poland are likely to become increasingly frequent in the near future. This could lead to the eventual reestablishment of the species in Białowieża Forest and the wider central European lowlands, restoring a diverse array of ecological interactions, while having significant and complex management implications. We briefly review the ecosystem impacts of bears in their natural ranges and discuss potential conservation management issues that would need to be dealt with in order to minimise potential conflicts, honour legal obligations and conserve the species.

Keywords

• Brown bear
• Large carnivore ecology
• Bear conservation
• Białowieża forest