A new study with the participation of the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) has determined thatseveral unoccupied areas of the Pyrenees are suitable for housing up to 110 brown bears. The Pyrenean population ofUrsus arctos, currently threatened, has only about 20 individuals that survive in two isolated groups.
The scientists, who have published their results in the journal Journal of Applied Technology, have carried out a habitat suitability analysis at two spatial scales. Due to the limited data available on the species in the Pyrenees and the unreliability of the existing habitat models, the researchers have used information from the nearby population of the Cantabrian brown bear.
According to the broad-scale model, the Pyrenees have a good quality of habitat for bears, which prefer forest areas with high connectivity and rugged scrub terrain. In addition, they avoid those regions with the greatest impact of human action. “The local scale model, compatible with the larger scale model, does show thatbears suffer a conflict between food resources, which are scarcer at high altitudes, and human presence, which is higher at low altitudes“, indicates Eloy Revilla, CSIC researcher at the Doñana Biological Station.
For scientists, identifying habitats capable of supporting small populations in danger of extinction is relevant when it comes to preserving key areas in the event of a potential increase in the number of individuals. The study applied to the brown bear could be used in the management of other threatened species.
