The Historic Grizzly

[brotherbear]

http://www.bearbiology.com/fileadmin/tpl..._74-83.pdf 
 
The Brown Bear (Ursus arctos) in Europe:
decline, present distribution, biology and
ecology
KAI CURRY-LINDAHL
UNESCO Field Science Office for Africn P.O. Box 30592,Nairobi, Kenya.
INTRODUCTION
Due to commitments in Africa I was unable to accept the invitation to attend
the Symposium in November 1970 and to contribute a paper on the brown bear
(Ursus arctos) in Europe. Later, I was again asked to write such a paper for
the Symposium Proceedings. In doing so, I have had the privilege of previously
reading and commenting on Ian McTaggart Cowan's paper, published in this
volume, on the status and conservation of the Ursidae of the World, before preparing
my own contribution, but even so it has been impossible to avoid some
slight overlapping of subject matter.
PAST DISTRIBUTION
In the past the range of the brown bear covered almost the entire coniferous,
mixed and deciduous forest zones of Europe. Probably the subalpine birch
forests of Scandinavia, Finland and the Urals were included in its past range
as nowadays. Although the brown bear seasonally visits the tundras and arctic
heaths above the timberline for feeding purposes, it has never in Europe been
a true inhabitant of treeless habitats. This feature seems to distinguish it
ecologically from the conspecific North American grizzly (cf. Cowan in this
volume).
HTSTORY OF DECLINE  
 
The history of local extinctions of the brown bear in Europe is geographically

and chronologically as follows:

Denmark: Extinct probably already about 5000 years ago.

Great Britain: Became probably extinct in the 10th century and had certainly

vanished by the beginning of the 11th century. It is uncertain whether it has

ever existed in Ireland.

Eastern Germany (Silesia): Extinct in 1770.

Western Germany (Bavaria): Extinct in 1836.

Switzerland: Extinct in 1904. Occasional visitor, observed in 1914.
French Alps: Extinct in 1937. 
 
PRESENT DISTRIBUTION

Although the brown bear has thus disappeared from the greater part of its

range west of the USSR, it still occurs in most European countries. The destruction

of forests and heavy hunting pressure have obliged it to retreat to

forest-clad mountains in various parts of Europe, where the populations are

isolated. There are at least 13 and probably as many as 19 or 20 insular

brown bear populations in Europe. Several of these pockets hold very small

populations, the future of which is far from being bright. The main populations

live in the USSR, Romania and Yugoslavia.

Information about the size of the European populations varies in accuracy.

Therefore, the following data are only indicative.

In Spain the brown bear is to be found as two isolated populations, one in the

Cantabrian Mountains, west of the Pyrenees, and the second in the Pyrenees.

According to Couturier (1954) there were about 40 animals in the Cantabrians

and about 60 in the Spanish Pyrenees. However, the latter population is connected

to the French one in the same mountains. There are about 70 brown

bears in the French Pyrenees and that is all that remains of the species in

France.

In Italy the brown bear still exists in two areas, the Abruzzo National Park

in the Apennines and between Adamello and Brenta in the Dolomites. In 1922

there were only 30 or so brown bears in the Abruzzo National Park, which

was established the following year. In 1935 more than 200 animals were reported

from the area, a figure repeated by Couturier in 1954 for the whole of

Italy. This estimate was probably much too high, for in 1964 the population

in the Abruzzo National Park was found to be only about 60 bears (CurryLindahl

1964).l In 1971, Mr Franco Zunino and Dr. Stephen Herrero worked

in this National Park and estimated the population there at 70-100 brown bears
(Herrero iz lift.). 
Of the large European carnivores-the bear, the wolf and the lynx--only the

bear has survived in the Alps with about 8-10 animals in the Italian Dolomites.

(However, the lynx has recently been reintroduced in Switzerland.)

In Yugoslavia, brown bears live in isolated mountains of both the northern

and southern parts of the country. Couturier (1954) estimated the population

at more than 700, a number that 16 years later seems to have increased considerably:

about 2000 (Isakovic 1970). Also in Albania there are 'numerous'

brown bears (Hainard 1961), but no figures are available. 



In Greece the population was estimated at about 115 individuals in the 1950's

(Couturier 1954), but this seems to be too low, because in Macedonia alone

there were about 400 bears in 1959 (Hainard 1961) and, in addition, there is

also a population in the Pindus Range of northern Greece (Curry-Lindahl 1964).

From Bulgaria about 1,300 brown bears were reported by Couturier (1954).

Romania has a fairly sizable population. According to Professor Valeriu Puscariu

(verbal comm. 1971) there are more than 3,000 bears, chiefly living in

the Carpathians.

In Hungary there were three to six brown bears in the 1950's (Couturier 1954),

1 The IUCN Mission to the Park in the same year accepted a figure of about
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