The main theme of the “Life with bears – 26th International Conference on Bear Research and Management” was human-bear coexistence in human dominated and politically fragmented landscapes. Specific conference topics were designed in a way to welcome recent research results, technical advances, and case studies on a wide spectrum of issues relevant to ensuring a long-term coexistence of bears and humans.

The conference’s 88 oral presentations were organized in seven sessions, including Human-bear interactions and management, Bears and Society, Bear ecology, behaviour and physiology, Bears and climate change, Spatial requirements and demographic characteristics of bear populations, Molecular genetics in bear conservation and management, and IUCN Bear Specialist group session entitled “What would have been without us?”.

Initially, more than one fifth of contributions were submitted in the topic “Bear ecology and behaviour«, and 16% in the topic »Human-Bear Interactions and management«. Seven per cent of submitted abstracts dealt with the topics on “Bears and Society”. Poster session included more than 90 posters displayed.

Project team was proud to present LIFE DINALP BEAR’s achievements in implementation of project actions and their experience in brown bear conservation. Project team members thus contributed to the conference with altogether 14 oral presentations and organized one of the four workshops available for the conference participants.

In addition to the scientific programme, project team has also promoted “Bear friendly” label developed within the project by organizing a “Bear friendly” Market, where 18 of our bear-friendly ambassadors had a chance to promote and sell their products.

For an overview of all contributions presented at the conference, please have a look at the Book of abstracts.