Co-author Irina Rotenko
In Naliboki Forest, a central-western area of Belarus, a dense inhabitants of wolves has lengthy existed. Up to now decade, brown bears have expanded into this forested space, elevating a urgent query: how do these two giant predator species work together? Significantly: the aggressive interference of wolves and brown bears, and the way their particular person traits have an effect on the encounter, is vital to analyze.
In Europe, other than the recognized observations of brown bears and wolves at man-made feeding stations and a few tough theoretical considering, we wish to say that there’s really a scarcity of documentation on the interspecific interactions between wolves and brown bears. Due to this fact, we can’t declare that this query is well-studied, and that the species interactions are well-known and simply predictable.
There are numerous reviews of such behavioural interactions of wolves and bears in North America, however they might not replicate what occurs between the species in Europe. These bears and wolves in North America and Eurasia are nonetheless erroneously categorized as the identical species, however they’re really very completely different of their behaviour, ecology and origin. Furthermore, their populations in North America and Eurasia have been remoted for a very long time by residing in very completely different environments.
Not too long ago, we managed to movie a footage of a brown bear being chased by two parental wolves from the place the place their pups stayed. You possibly can see the footage beneath.
Within the footage, you may see the guardian wolves and their pups within the house space of the wolf household. The wolf household had 5 pups that principally stayed in an space of about one sq. kilometre. The footage additionally exhibits that the guardian wolves have been usually bringing meat of their stomachs for the pups. Someday, a brown bear appeared close to the pups within the wolf household’s space. The guardian wolves quickly detected it by smelling its tracks. Then you may see the bear being chased by the guardian wolves away from the pup location. The footage spot was about 460 metres away from the place the pups have been. Curiously, there was a variety of battle between the bear and the wolves 30 metres earlier than and 20 metres after the footage spot, as indicated by the trampled forest ground and a few tufts of hair from each species.
Two years in the past, we documented a number of aggressive encounters between wolves and bears in Naliboki Forest. In a single case, a pack of 5 grownup wolves attacked a bear that was sleeping in its open hibernation website. The bear was medium-sized in comparison with different bears in Belarus. The bear defended itself beneath a spruce tree, snuggling to its trunk with its again, after which ran away in a single course. Later we discovered that the bear ran to a younger spruce thicket with many fallen birches. The bear tried to run by way of the densest vegetation potential (willow bushes, reed, younger spruces, fallen bushes and many others.). The wolves have been principally working beside the bear. Earlier than the bear reached the thicket, the wolves stopped it seven instances. Every time, it was in a small clearing or a spot with few bushes and bushes. The bear fought again in every spot, snuggling to the closest massive tree or giant willow bush, after which continued working. Lastly, after working about 3 km collectively, the bear reached a small spot of younger spruce thicket with two fallen massive birches. It appeared that the bear injured one wolf there contained in the thicket. There was not a lot blood, so we predict that the bear tore off a bit of pores and skin from the wolf’s again. After the encounter within the small thicket, the bear moved to a bigger one close by. The wolves stopped attacking the bear and left.
Curiously, within the earlier winter, a pack of seven grownup wolves had a house space (the place they usually stayed) the place a giant brown bear hibernated in a big self-made burrow at first after which in an open nest. The wolves didn’t trouble the bear and all the time saved about 100 metres away from it whereas passing by its hibernation website.
In one other case, a brown bear discovered a wolf den and began destroying it. It took half an hour for the bear to extirpate it. It regarded just like the guardian wolves have been watching the bear’s motion from a distance, however they have been too scared to strategy and assault it. Proper after the bear left, the guardian wolves got here to the ruined den. They regarded frightened. They inspected the den website cautiously and timidly, after which left and solely got here again at night time. Additionally they returned to the den website for a couple of extra nights, attempting to dig and examine the burrow den inside and on the lookout for their pups. It’s potential that among the pups have been killed and possibly eaten by the bear. It’s value noting that the bear was medium-sized, and the daddy wolf was slightly massive.
To summarize our present findings on the interspecific interactions of wolves and brown bears in Naliboki Forest, we wish to recommend that the scale of each species and the variety of wolves concerned in an encounter are vital elements which will affect the result. Nevertheless, that is solely a theoretical assumption, as we didn’t observe any clear patterns based mostly on the restricted knowledge we collected. Maybe, with extra knowledge on this matter, we can determine some regularities. We additionally assume that the expertise of each bears and wolves in interference with one another is an important issue which will decide who will dominate in such an encounter.