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Factors influencing the success of capturing European brown bears with foot snares

  • Joana Pereira EMAIL logo , Luís Miguel Rosalino ORCID logo , Slaven Reljić , Natarsha Babic and Djuro Huber
Published/Copyright: January 4, 2022

Abstract

Management of free-ranging wildlife may include the capture of animals, with the implication that the capture process is optimized, both logistically and economically and in a way that avoids animal suffering, injury or accidental mortality. Studies targeting the optimization of trapping techniques are scarce, especially when focusing on large European mammals. Therefore, to fill this knowledge gap, we aimed to evaluate key factors that help determine brown bear capture success. This was done by analysing a complete data set from 23 years of capturing free-living Eurasian brown bears in Croatia by using Aldrich-type foot snares. Results showed significantly higher capture efficiency when traps were located at permanent feeding sites when compared to temporary feeding sites. Also, the use of a trail trap design was significantly more efficient in capturing bears than using a cubby set. Finally, results showed that trapping was more efficient when we bait the traps more frequently and when we implemented longer trap-sessions, with at least 14 days.


Corresponding author: Joana Pereira, cE3c – Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Changes, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa, Campo Grande, 1749-016 Lisboa, Portugal, E-mail:

Funding source: LIFE DINALP BEAR 10.13039/100013288

Award Identifier / Grant number: LIFE13 NAT/SI/000550

Funding source: European Union’s Horizon 2020 10.13039/100010661

Award Identifier / Grant number: 665778

Award Identifier / Grant number: 2016/23/P/NZ9/03951

Funding source: Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia/Ministério da Educação e Ciência (FCT/MEC) 10.13039/501100001871

Award Identifier / Grant number: UIDB/00329/2020

Funding source: Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional (FEDER)

  1. Author contributions: DH and SR conceived of the presented idea and data collection. JP contributed to the data collection in 2017. JP and LMR performed the data analysis and results interpretation. JP took the lead in writing the manuscript together with LMR. NB contributed significantly to editing and English language reviewing. All authors provided critical feedback to the manuscript.

  2. Research funding: This work was supported by the (1) “LIFE DINALP BEAR” project (grant no. LIFE13 NAT/SI/000550; doi: 10.13039/100013288) and from the (2) European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Skłodowska – Curie grant agreement no. 665778 through National Science Centre in Poland, within the frames of project no. 2016/23/P/NZ9/03951 (BearHealth; doi: 10.13039/100010661). LMR was supported by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia/Ministério da Educação e Ciência (FCT/MEC) funding to the cE3c - Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Change (UIDB/00329/2020; doi: 10.13039/501100001871) through national funds and the co-funding by the Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional (FEDER) within the PT2020 Partnership Agreement and Compete 2020.

  3. Conflict of interest statement: The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest regarding this article.

  4. Research ethics: Bear trapping in Croatia was performed under the relevant permits since the start of the project. Permits were issued by the Ministry for Nature Protection and Energy (the most recent one: UP/1-612-07/19-48/76 (URBROJ: 517-05-1-1-19-2, issued 02.04.2019, valid until 31.03.2021) and the Ministry of Agriculture (the most recent one: UP/I 232-03/19-01/102 (URBROJ 525-11/1029-19-2, issued 26.04.2019, valid until 31.12.2019).

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Received: 2021-02-06
Accepted: 2021-10-26
Published Online: 2022-01-04
Published in Print: 2022-05-25

© 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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