APPLICATION OF THE GIS FOR THE BROWN BEAR COUNTING IN THE HIGH-ALTITUDINAL AREAS
The paper discusses the author's modification of the algorithms for the Brown bear visual counting methods, applicable for the high mountainous areas. It is demonstrated that the optimal season for the Brown bear counting in Katunskiy Biosphere Reserve is the 1-2 decades of May, when the bears appear at open slopes in search for food. Data on the bear population density are collected from the stationary counting plots covering the whole diversity of the spring bear habitats. Early efforts of extrapolating the counting results for the whole area of open slopes (except for the glacial landscapes on the mountain summits) led to the over-estimation of the total number of animals. For making the counting results more relevant we suggest to exclude the areas with high snow cover from the extrapolation range.