Brown bears Ursus arctos were historically persecuted and almost eradicated from Southern Europe in the 20th century as a result of hunting and direct persecution (Zedrosser et al. 2011; Martínez Cano et al. 2016). The effects of human induced mortality were exacerbated by other threats, such as habitat loss and fragmentation, due to the expansion of human populations (Swenson et al.
Apennine brown bears are a very small, isolated population of central Italy, consisting of about 50 individuals and under a severe risk of extinction.We performed a population viability analysis (PVA) for this population, contrasting a deterministic model and an individual-based stochastic model, using a set of demographic parameters estimated for the same population during the last decade.
Brown bears in the Apennines, central Italy, survive in a precarious conservation status but the reproductive performance of the population has never been formally assessed. Each year, from 2006-2014, we conducted surveys of females with cubs (FWC) to estimate the minimum number of female bears that reproduced and annual productivity in this bear population. We discriminated unique family groups based on simultaneity of sightings, presence of individually recognizable bears, and ad hoc distance-based rules developed using GPS relocations from 11 adult female bears in our study population.
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