Category: Sweden 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”

Update from our Sweden bear volunteer project

After two long days of training headed by Andrea and Gunther, the team have had a successful first day of field research, in three self-sufficient groups. The training was intense, with background lectures about why the research is so important for the protection of bears in this region, along with the detailed methodology we use to survey dens, find and collect bear scat and locate bears using radio telemetry. Andrea and Gunther also trained the team on how to use all the research kit – from the GPS units used to help locate the target dens, to the directional radio receivers used to triangulate the location of individual bears.

The working day starts with a briefing, giving each team a number of expected den sites and scat sites defined by GPS co-ordinates that need to be entered into the GPS units. The team have to work out where to drive to get close to their target locations – and from there the best route to hike through the wild landscape to get to their destination. How easy or otherwise this ‘hike and find’ task is varies a lot and thus our expeditioners have to be adaptable. The land can be pretty impenetrable, and the dens and scats can be very hidden.

The teams did well and had learned a lot from the training over the previous two days. On the first full research day, they discovered and recorded three bear dens, two ‘day beds’ and collected samples of seven bear scats. Another den was partly located: it was hidden somewhere on a series of cliffy ledges that was too steep to access safely. A possible revisit from a different direction was proposed for another day, so we may yet find and record this den too.

All in all, a successful day. Well done!

Continue reading “Sweden : Hard at work”

Update from our Sweden bear volunteer project

The Sweden Brown Bear Research Expedition has begun! Andrea, Gunther, Louise and Roland have been working tirelessly over the last few days to get everything set up with the necessary Covid restrictions in place. Adaptation is key to success when faced with such challenges on an expedition, and it seems to be a success so far. Even Andrea’s damaged knee (injured through a bad jump from a helicopter while darting a bear to attach a GPS tracker – she is that kind of bear researcher!) hasn’t derailed the expedition. A bionic-looking leg brace and some inner grit seems to keep her going.

Our multinational expedition team – representing the UK, Germany, Poland, Spain and the USA – have arrived, settled into base camp and hit the ground running with a busy first day of introductions, safety briefing, background lectures and practical training. By the afternoon, the team were hiking through the forest to find a bear den (recently vacated by the bear), navigating to it using coordinates in a GPS unit. It turned out to be a very snug den, excavated into an old ant hill: this type of den is considered to be a high quality one.

Louise’s Covid-adapted kitchen protocols have not stopped her producing great food for the hard working team. The outdoors briefing sessions are working out fine too, thanks to the good weather.

Tuesday will involve more training on research tasks, equipment and a full assessment of another bear den carried out by the whole team, led by Andrea. In the meantime, the team are allowed some down time whether that be in the communal log cabin, enjoying the peaceful ambience of the Swedish forest at dusk or, if they feel they deserve it, even firing up the sauna hidden away in the trees a short wander from base camp.

Continue reading “Sweden : Good start”

Update from our Sweden bear volunteer project

Greetings from Sweden everyone. Louise and I travelled up to Mora together, started feeling ill and tested positive for Covid yesterday; no idea where we picked that up. This is a bummer, but not the end of the world, as Covid no longer is the health issue it once was and because Sweden no longer has any restrictions in place (they never did have many). Today we feel pretty rough, but can still function, so because of this and out of courtesy to everyone else, this is how we will run the expedition:

• Louise and I will isolate ourselves as much as possible in the main house, where the kitchen is located. Louise will cook there and we will put the food out for you to carry over to the fireplace house to eat (we will eat in the main house).
• Also in the fireplace house will be the equipment and where Andrea will conduct her training sessions.
• You will all have twin share cabins to keep your things and sleep in at night, as normal.
• Louise and I will wear FFP2 masks (the thicker type) whenever we are in contact with you. We recommend that you also wear FFP2 masks when around us (make sure you buy some before you arrive and we will also have some on site).
• Andrea has drafted in her husband Gunther to help with training sessions. If I am needed for training sessions, they will be held outside or in the well-ventilated/draft barn and I will be masked up. We recommend that you mask up too.
• Andrea will lead all field training activities during the first two days and Louise and I will stay back at base.
• As people usually stay infectious for 10 days after testing positive, this will bring us towards the end of the expedition. Louise and I will monitor for symptoms and only stop using masks and join the group as normal if we have two negative tests 24 hrs apart; you are of course free still to use masks around us if/when we re-join.

I hope this explains everything clearly. We can discuss details on site, if you want to.

Apart from that, the expedition preparation is going well and to plan. We have bought what looks like an enormous amount of food, but is exactly the right quantity as calculated in Louise’s spreadsheet.

Our base camp is looking good and will be ready to welcome the expedition team on Sunday. The weather forecast is looking good. Cloudy and sunny days ahead, not much rain, temperatures up to 25C on some days. Don’t forget your sun hat!

Roland Arnison
Expedition leader

Continue reading “Sweden : Lergy”

Update from our Sweden bear volunteer project

The 2024 Sweden Brown Bear research expedition is fast approaching.

We have the same team as last year of expedition scientist Andrea, expedition cook Luise and me running the expedition and we are busy preparing. I am taking a break from a sea kayaking journey in Scotland and will be heading direct to Sweden in the coming days. Louise will be joining us from Devon to take command of the kitchen and keep the expedition team well fed. And expedition Andrea is based in Sweden and currently busy fitting tracking collars to bears who have recently left their winter dens. It is the use of these tracking collars that allow us to find the dens that we survey on our expedition, while also collecting a range of other biological data needed for us to understand how the bear population of mid Sweden is affected by changing pressures from climate change, forest management and hunting. This is conservation research on the front line.

We will be using similar research methodologies as last year, but we have some new kit. Make sure you read past expedition reports (2023, 2022, 2019) so that you are fully informed when you arrive.

The weather in Kvarnberg is good at the moment, warm and sunny. Although of course this may change, so please do bring clothes suitable for any weather, as described in the expedition dossier.

I can’t wait to get started and I will be back in touch from Sweden when I have arrived to set everything up for you.

Roland Arnison
Expedition leader

Continue reading “Sweden : 2024”