In the frame of LIFE DINALP BEAR project, we started capturing bears with Culvert trap (also called tube trap) in Slovenia. This bear live-trapping method for scientific, research, and management purposes has been long used in North America, where the trap design actually comes from. In Slovenia, the method has not been used before, but the Italian LIFE DINALP BEAR project team has an amazing amount of experiences gathered already.

The main purpose of the Culvert trap will be capturing those bears that create conflicts with people. Such bears that express problematic behaviour in regards to human property, will be captured, fitted with GPS-collars, and released. Then, we will track their behaviour and by analysing GPS data we will get insight into what triggers conflict behaviour, what exactly attracted them near settlements, and how effective our mitigation measures are.

Our first location for capturing a bear is located in Sodražica municipality in south Slovenia, where a younger bear regularly causes damages on beehives, orchards and field crops. We wish a lot of success to our capturing team.