Brown Bear Ecology and Human-Bear Conflict (HBC) Studies at Kaçkar Mountains, Artvin Turkey

My brown bear research had started in 2003 to determine brown bear habitat and conflict hotspots in Turkey. Then in 2004 I have found small grants from various organizations, such as Wildlife Conservation Society, METU etc. By these supports, I have been working in the field since 2004, recording sightings with cubs and all brown bear indicators e.g. scats, tracks and rub trees (see e.g. May issue of IBAN 2010). I have also regularly checked damage sites and obtain information from the locals about experienced wildlife damage. I usually meet with locals at least once a month at village cafes.
 

I focused on the Yusufeli district of Artvin (NE Turkey) but our project area stretches from inner Eastern Turkey (Erzurum) to the Black Sea coast (Rize) and east to the Georgian border (Borçka district of Artvin).

This photo is from the Ozguven village on the 2^nd of June. The top individual is a big male and lower right one is an offspring of the female in the middle. The distance between is less than 50 m.

There is a group of people who were observing a brown bear. Parents and children were very happy about the observation and waiting on the queue to observe bears on the opposite side of the valley via a fieldscope.

Brown bear monitoring (2004-2010)

First radio-collared brown bear of Turkey “Black Lord” was captured and released in September 2005. The funding was by WCS and METU. There is a camera trap photo of him taken in 2009.

A 2^nd radio-collared bear was captured this year by using foot snares. He is again a male and name “Split Ear”. A GPS-GSM color was fitted in 2010.

A 3^rd bear was released without fitting a radio-collar in May 2010 due to away from our focal area. This female brown bear was captured by a local who uses snares against wild boars. She was an old female without cubs.

4 more bears also captured and released by fitting with GPS-GSM collars in autumn field season of 2010.

HBC Studies (2004-2010)

I completed my MS “Analyzing human bear conflict in northeastern Turkey”on HBC - again a first in Turkey. Some parts of this thesis was published as an article in URSUS (Ambarlı & Bilgin 2008 ). In Artvin, even if people are afraid of bears, they like to see brown bears in nature while roaming around when no damage occurs at all. Weekends they go into the mountains and try to take photos and video of bears in nature. 

HBC research within the past few years showed that in early spring brown bear damage was mostly connected with unusual weather changes like late snow in April. In 2008 and 2009 compared to 2007 there were almost no damage to beehives but some damage to orchards and agricultural fields.

Electric fencing was also accepted as prevention and improved by the locals: inside the fence there are also sound producing systems by running water, shiny metals and flash lights (photo showing most of the local  measurements in the study area).

Preventive measure applications (2008-2010)

Electric fencing was carried out in 6 different places and protected more than 300 beehives. Five of them are solar powered and one is AC supplied electric fence. Although the photo on the left is the first electric fence for this purpose, supported by our Kaçkar project and Alertis, it was used in a WSPA supported documentary and while the beekeeper (Ekrem) and our two colleagues were interviewed, nothing was mentioned about our project and the documentary implied that this work was done by WSPA in Turkey.

Elevated platforms for beehives

Elevated platforms were established in two different sites. They are offered for beekeepers with less than 20 beehives because both bigger and smaller beekeepers always take some precautions whereas beekeepers having between 10 and 30 hives generally can not find a protected place to put their beehives so instead they resort to killing raiding bears. Elevated platforms are also accepted by beekeepers and they build locally improvised ones.