SBBRP attends the 28th International Bear Conference in Edmonton, Canada

The International Association for Bear Research and Management organizes biannual conferences where the newest results from bear research, management, and conservation for all eight bear species of the world are presented. This year marked the 28th IBA conference, which was hosted in Edmonton, Canada and was attended by 350 researchers from around the world. The Scandinavian bear project joined with four researchers (Jonas Kindberg, Ole-Gunnar Stoen, Andreas Zedrosser, Alexander Kopatz), two postdocs (Anne Hertel, Jeanne Clermont) and five PhD students (Beth Stacey, Rick Heeres, Ashlee Mikkelsen, Baptiste Brault, Aurora Donatelli) who presented six oral presentations and three posters on our ongoing research. In addition to the current status of the population and estimates of reindeer predation rates, our researchers also presented novel findings on behavioral classifications, sociality, interspecific interactions, new genetic markers, and space use of brown bears. This year’s conference featured several unique talks on indigenous knowledge of living with bears. One of these talks was presented by our fellow colleague Peter Andersson from Idre (Sweden) who gave insights about traditional Sami reindeer herding and sharing the landscape with brown bears.