![]() ![]() Photos taken by camera traps of a gray wolf and a brown bear previously radio-collared by the Scandinavian Wolf and Bear Research Projects © SKANDULV and SBBRP. The Scandinavian Wolf Research Project (SKANDULV) and the Scandinavian Brown Bear Research Project (SBBRP) have been monitoring Swedish and Norwegian wolves and bears for decades, collecting large amounts of information such as GPS data. In particular, the study of apex predators and their interactions requires data from many individuals of different species, across large areas and over long temporal scales, involving large teams of researchers collaborating with a shared aim. Because large carnivores are particularly important for ecosystem functioning, this calls for the question: How do large carnivores coexist within the same landscape? Monitoring large carnivores is challenging because they are rare, elusive, often crepuscular or nocturnal and therefore, methods to monitor them (e.g., GPS tracking) are challenging to implement. Having wolves and bears in the same ecosystem is great conservation news, but they also bring along management-related challenges. Many large carnivores continue to be threatened at worldwide scale, but several populations of different species are recolonizing former ranges in human-dominated landscapes. Our job fulfills the dream of any young biologist interested in apex predators, but it also brings personal challenges, like being far away from home for long seasons, when things go well and, sometimes, when they could go better. ![]() A colleague once told us: “be careful with dreams, they may become true”, and he was right. Collaborative research is one of the most rewarding activities that a scientist can be involved in, but anyone would likely agree that this process needs nurturing, hoping that many of our quandaries will be found at the bottom of a pint. Two decades later, we have had the luxury chance to work together on wolf-bear interactions with, probably, the best data available in the world. Soon after that, bear research started too. Back in the late 1990’s, we were finishing Biology at our home university and had recently started to volunteer and then work with wolves. ![]()
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