Behaviour of Solitary Adult Scandinavian Brown Bears (Ursus arctos) when Approached by Humans on Foot

Successful management has brought the Scandinavian brown bear (Ursus arctos L.) back from the brink of extinction, but as the population grows and expands the probability of bear-human encounters increases. More people express concerns about spending time in the forest, because of the possibility of encountering bears, and acceptance for the bear is decreasing. In this context, reliable information about the bear's normal behaviour during bear-human encounters is important. Here we describe the behaviour of brown bears when encountering humans on foot. During 2006–2009, we approached 30 adult (21 females, 9 males) GPS-collared bears 169 times during midday, using 1-minute positioning before, during and after the approach. Observer movements were registered with a handheld GPS. The approaches started 869±348 m from the bears, with the wind towards the bear when passing it at approximately 50 m. The bears were detected in 15% of the approaches, and none of the bears displayed any aggressive behaviour. Most bears (80%) left the initial site during the approach, going away from the observers, whereas some remained at the initial site after being approached (20%). Young bears left more often than older bears, possibly due to differences in experience, but the difference between ages decreased during the berry season compared to the pre-berry season. The flight initiation distance was longer for active bears (115±94 m) than passive bears (69±47 m), and was further affected by horizontal vegetation cover and the bear's age. Our findings show that bears try to avoid confrontations with humans on foot, and support the conclusions of earlier studies that the Scandinavian brown bear is normally not aggressive during encounters with humans

Dynamic table-visiting behavior of birds at outdoor restaurants and cafés

Fear of humans and its effect on animal behavior is increasingly being recognized as an important structuring force in ecological landscapes, with consequences for ecological interactions and communities. When aggressive, physically dominant species are displaced by anthropogenic disturbance, physically weaker species exploit competitor and predator downtimes to forage in previously risky places. Birds feeding at outdoor restaurants and cafés in association with humans are exposed to fluctuating levels of perceived danger caused by frequently changing densities of human diners. Consequently, birds must make decisions about which dining tables to visit based on trade-offs between foraging gain and perceived danger from avian competitors and humans. We tested the hypothesis that interspecific differences in response to perceived danger, combined with varying densities of human diners, dynamically alter which bird species predominates at dining tables. We found that house sparrows (Passer domesticus) tolerated higher human diner-densities than larger-sized, more physically dominant Eurasian jackdaws (Coloeus monedula). Sparrows were usually the first birds to visit diner-occupied tables and spent more time there than jackdaws. However, at diner-abandoned tables, this pattern changed: During low diner-densities at surrounding tables, jackdaws were usually the predominant species in first visits and minutes spent visiting, while at high diner-densities sparrows usually predominated. Moreover, along a gradient of increasing human diner-density, sparrows gradually replaced jackdaws as the predominant species in first visits and time at abandoned tables. However, at diner-occupied tables, once a sparrow chose which table to visit, factors other than diner-density influenced its choice of where to forage there (table-top or ground). To our knowledge, our research is the first scientific study of table-visiting behavior by birds at outdoor restaurants and cafés, and the first to reveal interspecific differences in table-visiting behavior by birds there