Abstract 95 – Straddling bears: transboundary populations in Ukraine

Svitlana Kudrenko, Teresa Berezowska-Cnota, Agnieszka Sergiel, Maciej Konopinski,
Andrii-Taras Bashta, Serhii Gashchak, Denys Vyshnevskyi, Serhii Obrizan, Michael Wood,
Andreas Zedrosser, Nuria Selva

The Carpathian brown bear (Ursus arctos) population is the largest in Europe and extends over
six countries. In the Ukrainian Carpathians, brown bears are now mainly inhabiting protected
areas and population estimates remain unprecise compared to neighboring countries. The
region provide a crucial movement corridor linking north-western components of the
Carpathian population in Poland and Slovakia with the numerous bear population in Romania.
We have conducted the first systematic study on bears in the north-western part of the
Ukrainian Carpathians. Our main goal was to predict habitat suitability for the species and apply
genetic monitoring methods (noninvasive hair and scat collection between April and October
2021) to investigate local population size. Overall, we collected 148 hair and 50 faecal samples
and further subsampled 107 samples for genetic analysis. As the number of follicles found was
sometimes small, DNA extraction was performed for the entire subsampled group, even for
samples consisting of a single guard hair follicle. So far, we have identified 17 adult individuals.
Our results revealed the overestimation of bear numbers in the region as well as poorly
restricted human activities (logging, recreation, gathering wild resource) both inside and
outside the protected areas. This project was the first step towards understanding the brown
bear distribution and population dynamics in the Ukrainian part of the Carpathians since no
systematic genetic bear studies have so far been conducted in this region. In addition to the
Carpathians, we have conducted identical research in the Ukrainian part of the Chornobyl
Exclusion Zone (CEZ). Bears were extirpated from the area for more than a century. We were
the first to detect a female bear in the area and by using bear presence data in the CEZ during
2014-2022, conducted habitat suitability modelling for the species.