Bears without borders: Long-distance movement in human-dominated landscapes

Conservation of wide-ranging species and their mobility is a major challenge in an increasingly fragmented world. Species are traditionally viewed as static conservation targets and the importance of securing long-distance movement of individuals is still underappreciated in conservation and policy. Here, we investigated large carnivore movements in humanized landscapes of Europe. We describe the movement of 6 GPS-tracked male brown bears, including one of the longest dispersal events recorded in this species. We looked at the relationships of bear movement paths with country borders, roads, built-up areas and habitat composition. The daily distance of resident individuals was 5.5 +/- 4.4 km and almost twice as long in the dispersing subadult (9.3 +/- 6.4 km). Maximum displacement of the disperser was 360 km (compared to 43.3 +/- 13.0 km in resident bears). The resident bears moved within less than 10 km to built-up areas, while the dispersing bear stayed mostly at larger distances. The bears also frequently crossed roads (0-31 per month) and state borders (0-14 per month). The dispersing bear moved through four countries. A review of 29 cases and studies of large carnivore long-distance movements in Europe showed that transboundary movement represented over 96% of all cases; 9 extended over different populations and 10 over recolonization areas. Most documented cases of long-distance dispersal (52% of 21 individual cases) ended with the death of the animal (82% of confirmed deaths were human-caused, 46% were legal killings) before it could reproduce. Reproduction was documented only in 2 of the individual cases. We emphasize high conservation value of long-distance dispersers in large carnivore populations and the need to reevaluate how they are viewed and managed. We urge to consider wide-ranging, transboundary movements in conservation policies. (C) 2019 Published by Elsevier B.V.