Most people imagine wildlife conservation as something done by scientists in remote places far from everyday life. But on Biosphere Expeditions’ Sweden bear project, people from all walks of life get the chance to step into that world themselves.
Biosphere Expeditions’ brown bear project in Sweden is not a safari-style wildlife experience where animals appear on cue. It’s real field research in a remote part of central Sweden, where volunteers assist scientists with long-term bear monitoring and ecological research.
Non-profit wildlife conservation organisation Biosphere Expeditions has successfully concluded its 2026 brown bear research field season in the forests of Dalarna county, Sweden. Working alongside bear scientist Dr. Andrea Friebe of the Scandinavian Brown Bear Research Project, an international team of volunteer citizen scientists generated critical telemetry, behavioural and dietary data tracking the region’s Scandinavian brown bear (Ursus arctos) population.
The 2026 expedition operated against a backdrop of increasing ecological tension, following a historic and highly controversial large-scale government cull during the previous hunting season. Despite a reduced regional bear density, the 2026 team completed an unprecedented sweeping survey of the study site, documenting a record-breaking 46 winter dens and successfully recovering months of localised data from deep-winter temperature loggers and remote camera traps.
This outstanding team managed to check and record all the bear dens that Andrea wanted us to cover. That’s a first in all our years in Sweden and Andrea was very pleased on our last night together. Well done everyone!
But the last few days weren’t just about dens. They were also about hunting bears.
Our efficiency drive continues and we have only six bear dens left to do in our study site. There are fewer dens this year, because there was a big cull last year, so fewer bears built dens in the 2025/2026 season.
But our scientist Andrea has plenty of work for us, so we are also retrieving camera traps and temperature loggers from the field for her. The camera traps take pictures of animals and the temperature loggers are left in the dens over the winter to record temperatures inside. Once retrieved, Andrea can download months worth of data from them.
“You are too efficient” was the high praise we received yesterday from our expedition scientist Andrea and “I need to find more jobs for you”.
And indeed we have hit the groove. Wednesday and Thursday we went out by ourselves, all trained up and ready to find and document bear dens. I can’t think of a much better way to spend your time volunteering in Sweden.
What does one do on a bear conservation expedition? After day 1, the overwhelming answer seems to be: to get flat tyres 😉 But first things first…
On Monday our intrepid team of citizen scientists assembled in Mora, a small regional town in Dalarna county and end point of the famous 90 km Vasaloppet ski race.
Greetings from Sweden and the massive Siljan impact crater (assembly point yellow, base red arrow). Luckily, the meteorite impact was over 300 million years ago.
Today you can still see the ring it created and in it upturned sheer walls full of fossils of the early ocean that was there before the impact.
Hello Sweden expeditioners Рthis is a short first diary entry from your expedition leader Matthias, just to say that I will be a few days ahead of you to set up base together with our scientist Dr. Andrea Friebe and assistant expedition leader Jan (Biekeh̦r).
