Nature and Science Foundation
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On 6 September, a meeting organised by the WWF Poland Foundation took place in Lutowiska as part of the project entitled ‘Supporting coexistence and conservation of large carnivores in the Carpathians’. The meeting focused on conflicts between large carnivores and humans in the eastern part of the Polish Carpathians. It was attended by several dozen people, including representatives of local authorities, farmers, foresters, hunters, police and environmental activists. The Nature and Science Foundation was represented by Dr. Wojciech Śmietana, who delivered a presentation entitled. ‘Do more conflicts with bears mean we have more bears?’. The meeting proceeded in a fairly constructive atmosphere, although there was no shortage of emotional speeches. One conclusion that could be drawn from the discussion was that the Bieszczady Mountains are changing from a land full of wildlife to an area where bears rummage through rubbish and wolves eat dogs. Opinions on the causes of this transformation were very divergent. Some participants believed that the cause was the excessive growth of wolf and bear populations, although research does not confirm this. On the other hand, W. Śmietana from the Nature and Science Foundation pointed to waste management that is not adapted to the presence of predators, a very large reduction in the number of game, which is the natural food of large predators, and the development of dispersed housing. WWF Poland declared that it will organise further meetings to improve the existing situation.