Maria G. Granados, Manolo Trujillo Carmona, Daniela Alba-Patiño, Alessandra Cuya, Regina LaFuente, Fernando Garrido, Maria Martinez-Jauregui, Miguel Delibes-Mateos

As large carnivores recover across Europe, understanding how human communities coexist with them has become a conservation challenge. This study examines rural residents’ perceptions of sharing landscapes with brown bears across a coexistence gradient in Spain: historic areas (continuous presence), intermediate areas (recolonized 15–20 years ago), and recent areas (occasional presence without established populations). The main aim was to understand how experience with large carnivores shapes social acceptance by exploring attitudes toward bears, perceived risks, costs and benefits, and management preferences using data collected through a telephone survey (n = 719).
Overall attitudes toward bears were positive across all contexts, but varied significantly between groups. Support was highest in intermediate areas (75%), followed by historic areas (69%), while recent areas displayed lower yet still majority-positive attitudes (62%). Risk perception revealed clearer contrasts: although attacks on people were considered unlikely, concerns about economic impacts were widespread. Historic areas reported stronger concern about livestock damage, reflecting long-term coexistence with conflict. In contrast, recent areas showed higher concern about attacks on pets and were more likely to perceive impacts negatively. Perceived risks to apiculture were high across all contexts. The most pronounced difference involved costs- benefits perceptions (χ² = 17.70, p = 0.001): respondents in recent areas were more likely to state that bears bring more harms than benefits, whereas historic and intermediate areas presented more balanced or positive assessments.
Despite these differences, acceptance of local bear presence and support for compensation and preventive actions remained consistently high. Coexistence history primarily shaped cost–benefit perceptions, underscoring the importance of targeted mitigation and communication strategies in regions experiencing recent bear expansion.