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 unfragmented forest habitats 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 home ranges and core activity areas and we investigated the daily, seasonal and altitudinal movements of brown bears in the Eastern Romanian Carpathians and surrounding high hills. The median MCP95% home ranges of brown bears was 629.92 km2 and the median size of core activity areas (estimated as 50% kernel density) was 36.37 km2, with no significant differences between males and females. The mean daily distance travelled, measured as daily displacement length, was 181...