Brown bear (Ursus arctos) den site concealment in relation to human activity in Scandinavia

Sammanfattning: As a hibernating species, the brown bear spend most of the winter months in a den as astrategy to avoid unfavorable conditions. The denning period is a vulnerable time for bears,making them unable to flee disturbances without losing valuable amounts of energy. Brownbears' wariness of humans and avoidance of anthropogenic disturbance often steer denningbears away from human infrastructure, and bears thereby avoid possible disturbance and itsassociated energetic costs. This study was carried out to test the hypothesis that bearsdenning closer to infrastructure select more covered den sites to compensate for the closedistance. Dens from 32 individuals were visited and analyzed in terms of sighting distance(a measurement for den horizontal cover) and habitat ruggedness, in relation to distances toinfrastructure. This study showed that bears tended to have more concealed dens and/ordens situated in more rugged terrain closer to roads and settlements with the highest humanactivity. Expanding human infrastructure might affect bear categories differently, sinceyounger bears were shown to den closer to human activity areas than older bears. Closedistance to human activity might therefore alter bears’ natural behavior evolved to endureunfavorable conditions during winter. Undeveloped forest regions are important to decreaseanthropogenic effects on bear denning behavior, and presumably also for the spatialdistribution concerning different bear categories (e.g. age classes).