Certificate - Etheses - Saurashtra University

commodities in their search for alternative food sources (Will, 1980; Horstman and
Gunson, 1982; Maehr, 1983; Elowe, 1984 and Hygnstrom and Craven, 1985).
Depredation by black bears was found to be linked with mature growth stages of corn,
peak pollination activities of bees and calving season of livestock (Jonkel et al., 1998
and Calvert, 1992). In Japan, black bears caused significant damage to coniferous
plantations, agricultural crops, apiaries, fish farms and livestock and human casualties
(Toshihiro, 1999 and Tsutomu and Joseph, 1999). The inappropriate disposal of trash,
agricultural and marine refuse acted as major attractants for brown bears and resulted
human bear conflict (Yamanaka, 1986 and Mano, 1990a, b). In Austria, attacks on
cattle, pigs and beehives were found quite common (Gulleb, 1993). In Scandinavia,
the brown bear population was reported increasing and dispersing, that resulted in
more interactions with humans (Swenson et al., 1999).
The human-brown bear conflict was studied in the northeastern region in Turkey,
where human settlements were small and scattered, and there was relatively high level
of conflict, especially involving damage to beehives, field crops, orchards and
livestock mainly sheep (Ambarli and Bilgin, 2005). In a study conducted on the
human-bear conflict in Greece, there was significant difference in regard to the
temporal and spatial distribution of both livestock depredation and crop damage
(Karamanlidis et al., 2005). Ohdachi and Aoi (1987) studied the feeding behaviour of
brown bears in Hokkaido, Japan and found that besides fruits, agricultural crops,
including corn, potatoes and rice, were also consumed by brown bears during spring
season that resulted in conflict situation. In Romania, large carnivores were found to
live near livestock than in any other European country and economic aspects of large
carnivore-livestock conflicts have been studied (Mertens and Promberger, 2001).
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