DOI: 10.5061/dryad.931zcrjqf
title: Data and codes from: Individuality matters in human-wildlife conflicts: patterns and fraction of damage-making brown bears in the North-eastern Carpathians

description: Effective, evidence-based management is required to ensure long-term
 coexistence between people and wildlife in an increasingly humanised
 world. Although behavioural individuality is recognised as a key factor
 affecting evolutionary and ecological processes, it has rarely been
 explicitly assessed in relation to human-wildlife conflicts. The ‘problem
 individuals’ paradigm states that some conspecifics within a given
 population have a disproportionately large contribution to conflicts. To
 the best of our knowledge, no studies have so far systematically tested
 this assumption in large carnivores. Here, we investigated the variation
 in conflict behaviour among brown bears Ursus arctos within the population
 inhabiting the Polish Eastern Carpathians. We inspected all sites notified
 as damaged by bears in 2014-2017 to determine the number and sex of the
 individuals involved. We conducted systematic non-invasive genetic
 sampling to estimate the size of the local population by spatially
 explicit capture-recapture models. We assessed the fraction and sex ratio
 of damage-making bears in relation to the population, as well as the
 behavioural patterns by classifying and differentiating between occasional
 and repetitive damage-makers. Approximately one-third of the estimated 72
 (95% CI 45.2–115.5) brown bears inhabiting the Polish Eastern Carpathians
 were responsible for damage occurrence in the region. The majority of
 damage-makers were female (65% vs. 35% of male), which reflected the sex
 ratio of the local population (0.57). Thirty-three percent of the
 damage-making bears (i.e. 9 individuals) were classified as ‘problem
 individuals’, exhibiting repetitive conflict behaviour. Synthesis and
 applications. This study provides evidence of intraspecific differences in
 conflict behaviour in a large carnivore species, the brown bear, and
 indicates that damage-making behaviour is not exhibited with the same
 frequency by all individuals within a population. Managers and
 policy-makers should be aware that targeting individuals involved in
 conflicts without reference to the whole population may lead to misleading
 conclusions or an incomplete picture of the mechanisms underlying the
 conflicts, and thus, to mismanagement. Unravelling the behavioural
 patterns of individual engagement in damage through large-scale and
 population-wide studies is needed to accurately assess the magnitude of
 damage and enhance human-wildlife coexistence in areas experiencing
 conflicts.
description: These files contain processed data and R-code to (1) estimate
 brown bear population density in the Polish Eastern Carpathians, for both
 sexes, using a spatially explicit capture-recapture model and model
 selection; (2) estimate probability density of individuals who are
 occasional and repetitive damage-makers, by mixture distribution models.
 The raw data were collected through bear damage inspections and systematic
 non-invasive genetic sampling in the study area. The included R code
 generates statistics and working plots. Details on data processing and
 analysis can be found in the original publication and accompanying
 Electronic Supplementary Materials.
description: The R software is required to open the files provided.