Data from: Movement ecology of brown bears (Ursus arctos) in the Romanian Eastern Carpathians

Brown bear movement patterns are driven by their opportunistic feeding behaviour, with their complex life history and seasonality playing an important role in habitat selection. Within a large and compact forest habitat persisting over decades in the Romanian Carpathians and a prohibitive hunting management during 40 years of communist centralised game management, information about brown bear movements and spatial ecology is lacking. Using data obtained from 13 brown bears fitted with GPS telemetry collars, we estimated the annual and seasonal home ranges and core activity areas, and we investigated the daily, seasonal and altitudinal movements of brown bears in the Eastern Romanian Carpathians. The median annual MCP95% home ranges of brown bears was 629.92 km2, and the median size of core activity areas was 36.37 km2, with no significant differences between  males and females. The mean daily distance travelled was 1838 m, and a seasonal movements analysis indicated significant differences between seasons (greatest movements during the hyperphagia season). The GPS-collared brown bears travelled between a minimum altitude measured at ca 230 m and a maximum at ca 1630 m. Analysing the spatial overlap between the estimated home range and the game management units limits we obtained a median number of 8 GMU`s overlapping totally or partially with estimated home ranges polygons. Our study using GPS telemetry monitoring, highlights the complex spatial ecology of the brown bear in the Carpathians, with large home range size, larger than those estimated in other European brown bear populations, with daily movements that vary by season and within a large altitude range.