A presentation given at the University of Zagreb last December is part of our commitment to involve more young people in rewilding.

Rewilding Europe’s writer and editor Daniel Allen spoke with Alexandros Karamanlidis, our regional manager and PhD wildlife biologist about the resurgence of apex predators across much of Europe, and the implications for conservation strategies and tourism.

Representatives of ten European Rewilding Network sites came together in March to discuss how social science and raising awareness can achieve better human-wildlife coexistence and mitigate human-wildlife conflict.

Today, conflicts with man still threaten Europe’s large carnivores species, and prevent the full recovery of their populations. In the past, strategies to mitigate these conflicts have varied between different European countries, they have typically focused on keeping large carnivores away from humans, either by eradicating them, or by restricting human access to areas where these carnivores exist.

Rewilding Europe and the Forestry Faculty of the University of Zagreb have started a cooperation to enhance the conservation of wild nature, wildlife and wilderness in the Velebit Mountains in Croatia. This cooperation will focus on proclaiming the old-growth forest Ramino Korito as a special reserve and researching the ecology of brown bear to improve its protection.

Even before reaching the hide in the Stramba Valley we see the first bears – a female with two cubs. They run up a small hill into the beech forest, hardly aware our presence. Under the guidance of a local forester we climb the stairs to the wooden hide and looking outside the window we see another female with three cubs feeding on the remains of a dead cow.