Over the summer of 2016 the field team has continued to verify the presence of various brown bear specimens in the interpopulation corridor. In July there was an attack on an apiary in Matallana de Torío and paw prints were sighted in the area in the following days. Soon after, there was another attack on beehives in Valverde (Valdelugueros). In Correcillas, in the Valdepiélago municipality, there has also been evidence of a bear in an apiary protected by electric fencing, although no damage has been done. In August the presence of bears eating cherries has been confirmed in the areas around Sena de Luna and Cármenes. In the latter, a bear has been eating cherries in the Gete valley in one of the few existing cherry orchards in the land acquired for the sowing of forests.
This area, which has been planted with whitebeam, apple, common hazel, alder buckthorn and mahaleb cherry will become an established visiting place for the bears in a few years. A little later in the month, bear excrements containing the remains of alpine buckthorn has been sighted in Sena de Luna and Vegacervera, around Valporquero caves, which reflects the importance of this shrub to feeding bears in the limestone territory of the interpopulation corridor.
August 2016
Volunteer students watching footprints in the municipality of Sena de Luna in August 2016.