Following the successful registration of illegally and legally held bears in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Pašić and Trbojević, 2018), it is necessary to move to the second phase for the fulfillment of the main objective (development of the Bear Sanctuary and Educational Center in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BSEC B&H). In order to do this, it is necessary to make the feasibility study and plan first.
To create this plan, several crucial steps are needed. This plan will include:
technical support of governmental institutions;
approval for transport of bears from one entity to another;
support of all hunting organizations that manage bears;
and financial needs for establishment of Bear Sanctuary and Educational Center in B&H.
More information will follow soon.
Between 2008-2011, Bears in Mind supported the project “Let’s Meet and Protect Bears- the Symbol of BiH Forests”, coordinated by Dr Nasir Sinanovic from the University of Sarajevo. The overall goal of this project was to create positive awareness and understanding about wild bears amongst the general public. The main problem and challenge is that there was very little scientific data on wild bears in BiH during those years. That’s why Bears in Mind thought it of importance that a pilot study was carried out and data was gathered in a central and specifically designed database. Bears in captivity were also registered in a special section. Various sources of information were used and people approached who were involved in bears somehow (so-called stakeholders): forestry officials, livestock herders, beekeepers, NGOs/GOs, hunters, mountaineer groups, tourist organizations, but also local people living in close proximity to bears. This way a general guesstimation could be made about the size of the population of bears living in BiH. Detailed information about human-bear conflict has also been gathered of bears raiding beehives, orchards and cornfields. The complete database has served as a solid base for brown bear management in BiH.
