Month: June 2024

Update from our Sweden bear volunteer project

The 2024 Biosphere Sweden Brown Bear Expedition is all but over now. Today we visited our last dens and collected our last scats. We have located and surveyed 27 dens, recorded 18 day beds and collected 56 scat samples. Of these, 7 were ‘first scat of the season’, a prize much valued by Andrea, as these scats reveal a lot about what the bear has eaten since the previous autumn. We have discovered remains of moose that bears have been eating, scratch marks on trees where bears have been sharpening their claws or climbing trees, clumps of bear hair and moose hair and other signs of bears in the landscape.

All of these research results make a valuable contribution to the long-term records of the bear population in Dalarna, and give insights into the health and resilience of the bears impacted by hunting, forestry management and climate change.

It is a great achievement for a team who only a week ago were starting pretty intense training, including how to carry out the research methodology, how to use some technical kit and how not to get lost in the woods.

High points of the expedition included a live sighting of a bear. Many of us saw moose too. One team was excited to find a large black adder slithering through the undergrowth. We have enjoyed discovering, measuring and climbing into a great variety of bear dens. As I write this, some of the team are off swimming in a local lake, which is a fine reward for a hot day’s work in the field.

And now it is time to pack up the kit, enjoy a final dinner together and reflect on our achievements.

Continue reading “Sweden : Job done”

Update from our Sweden bear volunteer project

The expedition is settling into a good working routine now. Each day, three teams set out on missions to find bear dens and locations where a bear has been lingering recently and record what they find. Sometimes they also use a radio antenna to calculate the real-time location of a particular bear hidden in the forest. Everyone has mastered the art of navigating to a dot on a map, well off the beaten track and confidently traversing the terrain to get there. Each discovery of a den, a bear scat or a day bed brings a little dopamine hit of achievement: some of these discoveries are hard won! The detailed research methodology that Andrea needs the team to carry out each time, which seemed so daunting during training, is now almost second nature, and we are bringing in a good flow of data: 11 dens, 23 scat samples and 7 day beds so far.

And just when its all beginning to feel like a routine, one of the teams had a wake-up moment while driving along a forest track at the end of the day. “Bear!” A small brown bear calmly sauntered across the track in front of them, wandered into the forest and settled down behind some fallen branches a short distance way. Driver Tom was equally calm and stopped the car without endangering anyone or freaking out the bear. Good work all round, and a wonderful moment for Tom, Zoe and Silke. The rest of us heard their story at the evening debrief (the encounter was too brief for photos), enjoying the wonder and joy vicariously with of course no hint of envy.

The hard-working team did enjoy a small reward of a picnic yesterday, provided by expedition cook Louise, at a local beauty spot with picturesque rocky woodland and a precarious bridge over a river gorge. Then back to work.

Continue reading “Sweden : Bear”