14,000 bears in continental Europe

Are you surprised that the number is that high?

There are about 200,000 brown bears in the world. The largest populations are in Russia with 120,000, the United States with 32,500, and Canada with 21,750. …

… Although many people hold on to the belief that some brown bears may be present in Mexico and the Atlas Mountains of Morocco, both are almost certainly extinct. …

The brown bear of Europe is closely related to the Grizzly. And looks like a Griz.

… In Europe, there are 14,000 brown bears in ten fragmented populations, from Spain in the west, to Russia in the east, and from Scandinavia in the north to Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia (with about 800–900 animals), and Greece (with about 200 animals) in the south. They are extinct in the British Isles, extremely threatened in France and Spain, and in trouble over most of Central Europe.

The Carpathian brown bear population is the largest in Europe outside Russia, estimated at 4,500 to 5,000 bears.

Scandinavia is home to a large bear population, with an estimated 2,500 (range 2,350–2,900) in Sweden, 840 in Finland, and 70 in Norway. Another large and relatively stable population of brown bears in Europe, consisting of 2,500–3,000 individuals, is the Dinaric-Pindos (Balkans) population, with contiguous distribution in North-East Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Albania, and Greece. …

Wikipedia – Brown Bear

Note that the smaller American Black Bear is much more numerous: up to 476,000 in Canada, and up to 465,000 in the United States.

We’ve had 3 people killed by bear since 2005 in my home Province of Alberta. So I’m quite bear aware when I hike.

In the Picos de Europa mountains in Spain, I’d swear “digs” I saw along the trail were made by bear. But I saw no other bear sign. The few animals in that range are very closely monitored.