Bear

The Office of Environment records the situation found and, for example, takes genetic samples from the bear's droppings so that the individual can be identified.  

When bears are present, the entire population is urged to avoid all food sources accessible to bears, such as garbage bags stored outdoors, garbage bins, pet food or food leftovers on accessible compost heaps. Bears must not be attracted to openly accessible, potential food. Therefore, do not leave food scraps or Waste lying around.

Bear records in the neighboring canton of Graubünden are published on the website of the Office for Hunting and Fishing and can be accessed via the following link:

Bear records in Austria are published on the website of the Austrian Bear Wolf Lynx Center and can be accessed via the following link:

Bear records for the whole of Europe are collected and published by the Large Carnivore Initiative for Europe (IUCN/SSC Specialist Group):

Bears are shy and avoid humans, which they usually manage to do thanks to their very good sense of smell and hearing. Direct encounters are rare and attacks only occur in exceptional cases. However, bears can indeed be dangerous to humans, although this usually relates to very specific situations, for example:

• Bears that have been fed and approach humans to obtain food
• Bears searching for food in unsecured garbage cans in settlements Female bears with cubs
• Injured bears
• or bears that a dog gets too close to (especially off-leash dogs that track down a bear and then run back to their owner, leading the bear to humans)

Most of these situations can be prevented with a few simple rules of conduct (see information sheets). Accordingly, attacks on humans are relatively rare even in areas with resident bear populations.

Bears eat honeycombs along with their brood as well as fruit and therefore raid beehives or fruit crops on occasion. This can be prevented by installing electric fences.
Bears also prey on pets. Unherded sheep are particularly at risk. If the animals are herded by shepherds and dogs and penned in at night, the risk of a bear attack can be minimized.

You can find more information on herd protection in the chapter "Wolf"

Reports in bear monitoring must be evaluated and divided into 3 categories according to their significance and verifiability. The so-called SCALP criteria are used for this. These were developed for the "Conservation of the Alpine Lynx Population" (SCALP) project with the aim of standardized, transnational lynx monitoring in the Alps so that the reference data can be compared with each other. These criteria were also adopted for the detection of wolves and bears.

Category C1 evidence - the C stands for "Category" - is reliable evidence, i.e. hard facts that clearly confirm the presence of an animal. This category includes (unambiguous) photos, genetic evidence (saliva, droppings), dead finds, live catches or data from telemetry tracking.

Category C2 evidence is confirmed evidence by persons with appropriate training; this includes cracks (livestock and wild animals) and tracks

Category C3 evidence is unverified findings of cracks, tracks and droppings, as well as all unverifiable evidence such as vocalizations or visual observations. Random observations from the public are an immense and important source of information, as many people are out and about in nature every day. Among the C3 reports, there are always those where an animal was mistaken for a bear. Nevertheless, such reports are important for the Office of Environment and are routinely recorded in a database. In combination with C2 or C1 evidence, C3 reports can also provide important conclusions about the probable appearance and behavior of bears