Chamber for agriculture and forestry of Slovenia and National Council organised a meeting “Future management of large carnivores in Slovenia” last week, where they expressed their concerns about population sizes and distribution areas of large carnivores in Slovenia. Experts from Ministries, Slovenia Forest Service (SFS), and representatives of Forest Ownership Association, Hunters Association and Farmers Syndicate were invited to participate.

Members of LIFE DINALP BEAR project team from SFS presented measures for effective protection of livestock, which have been implemented and expanded into a good-practice in case of those farmers, that are willing to cooperate and decrease the conflicts due to large carnivores attacks. We presented a decreasing trend of damage occurrences in case of those farmers, who decided to adapt such protection measures. We pointed out the necessity of proper maintenance of these protection systems, which was illustrated by video clips of bears, which approach in-/properly installed electric fences. We presented also year-to-year dynamics in damage occurrences due to wolf and bear depredation in relation to trends in population size estimates. Our plans for future involve further co-financing and donation of protective systems and we will put our efforts in further implementation of all available measures that contribute to decreasing conflicts between human and bear.