Behavioural responses of brown bears to roads and hunting disturbance

Harvest regulations commonly attenuate the consequences of hunting on specific segments of a population. However, regulations may not protect individuals from non-lethal effects of hunting and their consequences remain poorly understood. In this study, we compared the movement rates of Scandinavian brown bears (Ursus arctos, n = 47) across spatiotemporal variations in risk in relation to the onset of bear hunting. We tested two alternative hypotheses based on whether behavioural responses to hunting involve hiding or escaping. If bears try to reduce risk exposure by avoiding being detected by hunters, we expect individuals from all demographic groups to reduce their movement rate during the hunting season. On the other hand, if bear avoid hunters by escaping, we expect them to increase their movement rate in order to leave high-risk areas faster. We found an increased movement rate in females accompanied by dependent offspring during the morning hours of the bear hunting season, a gener..., , , # Data from : Behavioural responses of brown bears to roads and hunting disturbance

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.1zcrjdg1f](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.1zcrjdg1f)

This dataset contains movement data from brown bears equipped with GPS collars during 2016-2019 in south central Sweden. The dataset was used to determine the effect of distance to the closest road on the movement rate of brown bears, while controlling for time of day (solar time in radians), hunting season (Before hunting and Bear hunting) and demographic groups of bears.

## Description of the data and file structure

log_sl_: log of step length (m/h)

Road_C: distance to closest road in meters (standardized; (obs-mean)/sd)

Road: distance to closest road in meters (raw)

suntime: solar time standardized in radians (sunrise at pi/2 sunset at 3pi/2)

hunting: hunting period as factor (11 days before hunting (Before) vs 11 first days of bear hunt (Bear))

bearyear: bear-year id

Stat: demographic groups (WC = females wit...