Welcome to the Cantabrian Brown Bear & Otter Research Group webpage!
Since 2014, our group, which is based at the National Museum of Natural Sciences (MNCN-CSIC, Dept. of Evolutionary Ecology, Madrid https://www.mncn.csic.es/en/investigacion/evolutionary-ecology) and the Research Institute of Biodiversity (IMIB, Asturias https://www.unioviedo.es/UMIB/en/), has been studying brown bears and otters in the Cantabrian Mountains. Our mission is to conduct scientifically-based research that provides insights into brown bear and otter ecology, behaviour, conservation and management. From an applied perspective, our purpose is to help ensure brown bear and otter long-term conservation in the Cantabrian Mountains (our main study area) and, thus, help manage the challenge of sharing this human-modified landscape with bears.
We are broadly interested in:
how bear and otter populations respond to anthropogenic exploitation and landscape modification
understanding and solving brown bear – human conflicts to facilitate coexistence
integrating bear and otter ecology and behavioural information into decision-making processes
Our group is a team of researchers from the Spanish Council of Scientific Research (CSIC), and several Spanish universities and foreign research centres, as well as students and field assistants with interests and expertise in top predator ecology and behaviour, predator-prey relationships, and carnivore-human conflicts. We are a truly interdisciplinary group and our research (i) is strongly quantitative, (ii) is designed for publication in peer-reviewed journals and (iii) integrates theoretical and empirical information. Our research projects are supported by contracts and grants from state ministries and non-governmental agencies as well as private organizations.