CONSERVATION OF BROWN BEAR IN GEORGIA

The project “Conservation of Brown Bear in Georgia” funded by Alertis – Fund for Bear and Nature Conservation was launched in 2005. The project aimed to bring about a better understanding of various ecological aspects of brown bears in the Vashlovani National Park. Fieldwork under this project involved the use of radio telemetry and photo trapping. Resulting recommendations will be then drafted in the nearest future for subsequent use in the conservation management of brown bear and other large carnivore species that are found in the national park.

Bear radio tracking conducted in Georgia for the first time

Despite a determined effort and extensive fieldwork no bears were captured for radio collaring in 2005. Nevertheless, we gained a vast amount of experience in learning to set up bear traps and selecting suitable bait for the Vashlovani bears.

Finally, after one month of continuous fieldwork in the spring of 2006, all the hard work paid off on April 15 with the capture of our first bear.

The bear had been visiting the trap site and successfully making away with the bait for several days. We were rather surprised at how it managed to get away with the bait so many times without triggering the spring activated leg-hold snare. Nonetheless, our patience was finally rewarded with our first captured bear. The bear was first immobilized safely, treated as outlined in the special field protocol, radio-collared and then released without any problems. This overall success had marked the beginning of radio-telemetry research for brown bears in Georgia.

We used a special mixture of tranquillising drugs that were injected into the captured bear and it fell asleep after a short time. Following the field protocol for bear immobilisation and radio collaring, we followed all the necessary procedures in attempting to handle the bear as quickly as possible in avoiding any possible health complications or physical injuries. It was a young male, judging from its body size and condition of teeth, probably about 4 years of age. Having checked if the radio collar was working correctly we then injected a reversal agent and walked quite a safe distance away from the capture site to observe him waking up safely from the nap. The bear first lifted his head, than stood up, staggered to the nearest stream, took a drink of water and laid down in a patch of nearby shrubbery to recover. After a few hours we saw him roaming in the gorge and we were then able to track him later in the evening with the interception of the first radio signal.

The process of radio tracking turned out to be quite challenging. The deep narrow gorges of the Vashlovani National Park serve as a natural barrier, and radio signals are often interrupted, weakened, or can even bounce from the bear’s collar into another direction. NACRES members had been trained in large mammal radio-tracking in relatively flat areas of Sweden and Kenya. But hunting for a radio signal in the rugged terrain of Vashlovani was a totally new experience for all of us.

Despite these difficulties, we were able to successfully collect a great deal of data on the habits and movement of the radio-collared bear. We found where the animal rested during the daytime (so-called daybeds). We found out what were preferred feeding sites during different seasons of the year (spring and summer). In summer, 24-hour observations allowed us to learn the animal’s high activity periods throughout the day. In all, our data showed that the bear moved over long distances and that may have been an indicative of how large was his home range. A maximum distance between two locations was recorded to as much as 16 kilometres. Notably he often left the territory of the national park to feed in the agricultural fields located to the north.

In the summer of 2006 we began another round of fieldwork to live trap more bears for the radio telemetry study. However, we soon we encountered a slight problem – for the first time ever in over a decade of doing field research on the site the state border guard refused our working in certain regions of the National Park. Consequently the fieldwork was disrupted and as instructed by the local border police, we had to return to the capital and apply for a special permit to continue our fieldwork in the border zone.

Fieldwork was resumed in August. However, more bad news was waiting for us. After days of radio tracking we still could not catch a signal from the radio-collared bear. We scanned practically the entire national park in trying to pick up a signal, checking out every single little gorge as we thought that this rugged terrain was most likely why we were unable to receive the signal. Later we learned from locals that poachers had shot a bear wearing a collar in a sunflower field. Upon closer investigation, it soon became apparent that this bear was killed at the time our bear had stopped sending a signal.

Despite this unfortunate setback, we still plan to continue conducting bear research using radio telemetry. We had to overcome many obstacles and gained a great amount of experience trying to trap the first individual and in the process of radio-tracking him. We can say with pride that bear radio-tracking has been successfully introduced into Georgia and this first step is great reinforcement in being more motivation to continue our work into the future. We intend to radio collar at least 3 new bears in 2007. We hope that the problem of illegal shooting in the areas adjacent to Vashlovani National Park will be solved in the nearest future.

NACRES research continues.