During 2016 we regularly worked with various Slovenian and foreign media, through which we disseminated results of our research among the general public. We prepared media press releases and received several invitations by the journalists, after our research was published in scientific journals or following highly-profiled events connected with our research. This resulted in large number of publications and shows in daily newspapers, popular magazines, news web portals, radio and TV stations. Especially high publicity was received for our cooperation in popular science TV show Ugriznimo znanje (Bite the knowledge) about the effects of artificial feeding on wildlife (COBIS 1244374) and publication of study on the effects of supplemental feeding on bear denning behaviour (COBISS ID 4578982), which was highlighted in numerous Slovenian (e.g. Delo, Dnevnik, Slovenske novice, TV Slovenija, Pop TV, Radio Slovenija) and international media (e.g. Science Daily, Science News, Business Insider, Intel News, Science Info). We also received invitation to present results of our bear research in a documentary prepared by the British television station BBC in 2017.
F.17 Transfer of existing technologies, know-how, methods and procedures into practice
Members of the project group are active members within several scientific committees and societies. By active participation within such government and non-government committees we help with transfer of novel scientific findings into practice, which results in more effective wildlife management, in this case management and conservation of the brown bear. During the 2016 members of the project groups were involved in Expert committee supporting large carnivore management in Slovenia, Working group for large carnivore management planning, Expert committee of the Notranjska regional park, Expert committee of the Dinaricum society, and scientific council of Slovenian Hunting Association. Project leader is among others also a representative of Slovenia in Large Carnivore Initiative for Europe, member of Bear Specialist Group and scientific counciler in International Bear Asociation (year 2017).
D.03 Membership in foreign/international boards/committees
Important social output of the project is an increase of scientific cooperation with research community in Slovenia and abroad, achieved by new direct personal contacts and project networking. For example, since the very beginning we started collaboration with Scandinavian brown bear research project, which is extremely productive in scientific outputs (over 200 SCi papers). During first year of the project we set the structure of manuscripts that will result from this collaboration (at least 2, focused to responses of the brown bears on human disturbances in contrasting environments). Part of project group members are also working on international EU Life DinAlpBear project, which is highly applicative, but will yield extensive datasets, that will significantly enrich the possibilities of current project. One of the key goals of DinalpBear project is to decrease the level of human bear conflicts. Therefore we can directly transfer the results of current project into practice through their implementation in DinAlpBear. We also started collaboration with international BearConnect project that connects all research groups in Europe working on brown bear. Newly established scientific collaborations, research, publications and presentations are increasing reputation of our group, being the most prominent group working on bears in central and southern Europe and becoming highly visible on world scale. To confirm: in 2016 Slovenia (Biotechnical faculty in cooperation with SFS) was invited to organize next word conference of International Bear Association, taht will be held in Ljubljana in 2018. The project group members will organize and chair two workshops on this conference, both covering the topics that are elaborated within present research project (artificial feeding, genetics).
D.08 Management and development of research activities