Identifying Human-Brown Bear ‎‎(Ursus arctos) Conflicts Areas in ‎Mazandaran Province

Today, human and wildlife conflict, especially big carnivores such as brown bear, is one of the most challenges and difficulties in biodiversity conservation. Increasing the conflicts have resulted in increasing the negative attitude of local people toward the wildlife and as a result of that leads to increasing poaching of carnivores, especially in an area such as Mazandaran Province which has a high density of human and wildlife. We conducted this study by identifying the area with a high conflicts between the bear and human and human assets in Mazandaran Province. Moreover, we used field observation data to diagnose the distribution of mountainous areas which are potentially exposed to bear attacks in the Province. We collected the bear damages data by questionnaire form and field surveys. Biogeoclimatic variables which were used in the analyses are elevation, distance to the village, the density of beehives, human footprint, the density of domestic animals and land use. We recorded 150 bear attacks to human and human properties which include 16 to human, 19 to domestic animals, 67 and 48 destruction of fruit gardens and beehives, respectively. According to the results, most conflicts are in the spring and autumn. The most important variables are elevation, distance to village and fruit gardens. According to the results, human-bear conflicts in the Mazandaran Province are in the elevation range between 150 to 3000 m. On the other hand, fruit gardens around the villages have a key role in attracting bears to human settlements.