The purpose of this thesis is to determine how carrion feeding sites in habitats of bears, wolves and lynx in Slovenia affect their movement and behaviour, and how carrion feeding increases the frequency of large wild animal attacks on farm animals. After reviewing scientific literature and data on damage claims and conducting structured interviews with experts, hunters and breeders, we found that carrion feeding sites generally do not have a strong impact on the frequency of wild animal attacks on domestic animals compared to ordinary feeding sites. Bears tend to visit carrion feeding sites more than feeding sites with corn, which means that this keeps bears away from humans at least for a certain part of the year. However, the influence of carrion feeding sites on the attacks on farm animals has not been examined so far, but indirect research suggests that there is no impact or it is not significant. We also found that carrion feeding sites and feeding sites with corn affect the movement and the intraspecific relationships among wild animals. Bears regularly walk around carrion feeding sites and regular feeding sites, but at different times of day in order to avoid interspecies interaction. In addition, stronger bears sometimes claim carrion feeding sites or other feeding sites, which attests to their impact on the movement of the bears. Moreover, they also influence the behaviour of animal species; as bears tend to hibernate later than they used to because food is available at all times, wolves frequent carrion feeding sites and regular feeding sites due to carrion and game. Large wild animals have caused the most damage to sheep and goat in 2010, but in the following few years the Slowolf project launched numerous activities that significantly reduced the number of such instances.
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