| Summary: | Background. The paper presents data on the brown bear hunting for moose in the Central Forest Nature
Reserve and adjacent areas. As part of a long-term camera trap monitoring, rare cases were obtained demonstrating
the hunting behavior of bears in relation to moose. Material and methods. The work was performed on
the basis of a big amount of data from camera traps for the period from 2010 to 2022. The main data analysis
methods include circular statistics and analysis of daily activity patterns. Results. A total of 12 cases of hunting
were recorded. In 11 of them, bears chased moose cows. In 7 cases, there were 1 or 2 yearling calves along with
cows. In two cases the bears were large in size, in one case the bear was small, and in the rest they were medium.
Two hunts were successful, 5 were not successful, and in the other cases the result is not known. Most hunts took
place in the morning (n = 4) or evening (n = 5) hours. Eight hunts were recorded in spring, 3 in summer, and 1 in
autumn. The average time between bear and moose, excluding hiding, was 16,55 ± 4,68 s. The daily activity patterns
of bear and moose were strongly overlapped ( 4
ˆΔ
= 0,76), especially in the case of moose cows with calves ( 4
ˆΔ
= 0,81) and solitary moose cows ( 4
ˆΔ
= 0,79). No significant differences were found between bear and moose
activity levels. Conclusions. In general, according to the data of camera traps, the brown bear demonstrated a high
degree of specialization in relation to the prey of solitary cows and yearling calves in the spring.
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