September 23, 2024 – The 28th International Association for Bear Research and Management (IBA) conference, titled “Co-Existing with Bears on Dynamic Landscapes,” took place from September 15th to 20th in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Over 400 participants worldwide delivered oral and poster presentations covering various topics related to all eight living bear species: polar bear, brown bear, American black bear, Asiatic black bear, Andean bear, sun bear, giant panda, and sloth bear.
Slaven Reljić, PhD and Djuro Huber, PhD from Oikon, both members of the IBA and the IUCN Bear Specialist Group, participated in the conference, contributing with several oral and poster presentations. As the first author, Slaven Reljić, PhD presented “How Far is the Female Den?” (link), which explored the distance females with cubs of the year move during their first spring after giving birth. The presentation highlighted the importance of these findings for the preservation of denning habitats when constructing new infrastructure, such as wind farms. Djuro Huber, PhD gave a review presentation titled “European Brown Bear Conservation: A Continent-wide Assessment of Bear Intervention Teams,” which assessed bear intervention teams across Europe. Both presentations were very well received by the participants.
Djuro Huber, Phd, received an award for outstanding and lasting contribution to IBA’s mission of promoting science-based conservation of the world’s eight bear species.
The conference provided a valuable platform for sharing research and discussing strategies for bear conservation in diverse and dynamic landscapes.
