National and regional story (Slovenia) - A Bear’s tale

The brown bear (Ursus arctos) is a species of the bear family (Ursidae) and, today, the largest wild animal in Europe. The bear is a European Protected Species and one that is also protected by a large number of other international conventions, including the Berne Convention and CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora). The brown bear has considerable spatial requirements, opportunistic omnivorous feeding habits, great mobility and a clear tolerance for the presence of human beings, for which reason it has been classified as a vulnerable species.

In Europe there are around 50 000 bears living across an area of 2.5 million km2. Population densities are changing and depend on the accessibility of food, the number of bears taken from the wild, and growths and falls in population. The brown bear population in Slovenia is part of that which is distributed across the area covered by the Alps, the Dinaric Alps and the Pindaric mountain area. It is one of the largest populations, estimated at between 2 100 and 2 500 bears. Slovenian bears constitute the most westerly part of the brown bear population in central Europe. The central area of distribution of the brown bear in Slovenia includes the high Karst, an area of dense mixed forest of difficult and complex terrain in the Kočevje and Notranjska regions which extends across the Ljubljana-Kozina motorway to the western edge of the high Karst, i.e. to the Trnovski forest, Hrušica and Nanos, to the eastern edge into the Gorjanci and to the north to the Krimsko-Mokrško mountain range.

In the Strategy for Management of the Brown Bear (Ursus arctos) in Slovenia, which was adopted by the Slovenian government in 2002 in response to the requirement to coordinate protection of the brown bear with human use and activities and to EU demands for the definition of a special protection area, Slovenia was divided into four zones reflecting the different levels of protection in force (Figure 1).