Analysis of movement ecology and habitat use of brown bears (Ursus arctos) monitored with GPS-GSM telemetry method in Şavşat, Turkey

The largest mammal species living in our country is the Brown Bear (Ursus arctos). An appropriate management model should be developed to protect the brown bear, prevent human-bear conflicts etc. In order to create a management model suitable for the brown bear, it is very important to create activity patterns, calculate roaming areas, reveal habitat uses and analyze habitat preferences. GPS-GSM telemetry data plays an extremely critical role in order for these calculations and analyzes to be carried out accurately. In this context, studies based on GPS data for brown bears are very important. In this study, hourly location data was obtained by tracking 5 male and 5 female Brown Bears in Şavşat district of Artvin province with the help of collars equipped with GPS-GSM transmitters. Using these data, activity patterns of the Brown Bear species were extracted, roaming areas were calculated, habitat uses were determined and habitat preferences were analyzed. Habitat suitability modeling was done with the Maximum Entropy method. As a result, it was observed that the brown bears in Şavşat traveled an average distance of 813.86 kilometers per year. While female individuals traveled an average of 2.1 kilometers per day, male traveled an average of 2.25 kilometers per day. It is observed that grizzly bears spend an average of 117 days a year in hibernation. According to the MCP (90%) method, the average roaming area of females is 10.5 km2, and the average roaming area of males is 193.9 km2. According to the Kernel (99%) method, the roaming area of females is 10.7 km2 and the roaming area of males is 148.4 km2. It has been determined that brown bears mostly prefer coniferous forest habitats and forest clearings.