This page gives an overview of successful past and ongoing LIFE projects with a focus on one or more large carnivore species of Europe. For additional information visit the LIFE Public Database (insert "wolf", "brown bear", "lynx", "wolverine" in search bar).
Ongoing projects
- Improve conditions for the endangered Dinaric-Pindos brown bear population by tackling habitat fragmentation and supporting transboundary cooperation.
- Establish standardised monitoring and management programmes.
- Reduce conflicts and bear mortalities through conflict management tools, Bear Smart communities, and stakeholder engagement.
- Reduce poaching of three species at high risk of extinction: Apennine brown bear in Abruzzo, Egyptian vulture in Sicily and European eel in Friuli Venezia Giulia.
- Build capacity among law enforcement and the judiciary.
- Improve data sharing, governance and community reporting of wildlife crime.
- Reintroduce and reinforce Baltic lynx stepping-stone populations in northern Poland.
- Restore the historical range and connect the eastern population with central European ones.
- Provide comprehensive lynx care including telemetry monitoring and rehabilitation.
- Build a genotype library to guide ex situ and in situ conservation planning.
- Cooperate with stakeholders to increase the use of conflict mitigation measures (e.g. livestock guarding dogs).
- Increase knowledge of damage officials.
- Develop education materials on coexistence and conflict prevention.
- Increase the abundance of wild prey and improve habitat conditions for Iberian wolf and Iberian lynx south of the Douro River.
- Promote coexistence with rural communities and increase knowledge on the assessment of damage prevention and detection of environmental crime.
- Preventing and mitigating human-bear conflicts in the Cantabrian Mountains.
- Security perimeters, dissuasive fruit tree planting outside villages.
- Informing residents and local stakeholders on conflict prevention.
- Strengthening waste management systems.
- Identify patterns and causes of confident wolf behaviour and raise awareness about the issue in local communities in eight countries across the EU.
- Enable authorities and local communities to adequately manage critical situations where wildlife approach humans in urban and peri-urban areas.
- Establish emergency teams.
- Create a genetically and demographically functional Iberian Lynx metapopulation.
- Maintain acceptable rates of non-natural mortality by safer road-crossings, agreements between landowners, hunters and farmers to avoid conflicts.
- Ensure prey availability in the stepping-stones and in the incipient and new nuclei.
- Replicate and adapt the Canadian Bear Smart Community concept in Italy and Greece.
- Improve coexistence with bears by taking preventative measures and raising awareness in Bear Smart Communities.
- Remove threats and improve conditions for bears in the coexistence corridors, with a focus on preserving natural food in the areas.
Past projects
OBJECTIVE:
Reduce societal tension and increase public acceptance of wolves by mitigating negative impacts on livestock and dogs, and developing tools to reduce illegal killing.
RESULTS:
✓ Established a DNA-based monitoring system, expanding volunteer sampling with over 90% territory coverage.
✓ Delivered practical conflict mitigation tools incl. 72km of fencing, 168 trail cameras on 43 farms, 270 farm visits, protective vests trialled on 200 hunting dogs (no dogs injured), and an anti-poaching hotspot tool.
✓ Strengthened anti-poaching efforts through a dedicated wildlife patrol in Eastern Finland, supporting new wolf territory establishment and increased public crime reporting.
OBJECTIVE:
Train 1,000 livestock farmers across the Alps in livestock protection using a peer-to-peer, bottom-up approach through farmers' associations, and establish a transboundary expert network.
RESULTS:
✓ Reached ~70% project awareness among surveyed stakeholders, with ~52% reporting that LIFEstockProtect influenced their view on livestock protection and ~25% feeling more open to implementing protective measures.
✓ Documented 2,147 activities with high satisfaction scores (4.24/5) and measurable shifts in openness (4.01/5) and mindset (3.79/5), indicating effective capacity building.
✓ Generated an est. 1 billion media contacts across 1,925 logged outputs, helping normalise livestock protection in the broader public debate.
OBJECTIVE:
Improve the adaptability of the brown bear to climate change in the Cantabrian Mountains with an ecosystem-based approach.
RESULTS:
✓ Habitat restoration across 209.83 ha, contributing to a net annual increase of 229 tonnes of carbon sequestration.
✓ Land purchase of 3.93 ha of abandoned chestnut forests and 20.10 ha of private fruit tree and chestnut plantations for habitat restoration.
✓ Planting of 148,883 native fruit-producing trees and shrubs across 152.94 ha and planting of 19,559 chestnut trees over 40.67 ha.
✓ Effective stakeholder engagement, with 39 voluntary agreements with 48 landowners covering 163.59 ha and 13 collaboration agreements with sectoral organisations.
OBJECTIVE:
Improve human-bear coexistence in four National Parks of South Europe by dealing with bear approaches to residential areas and implement effective damage prevention measures.
RESULTS:
✓ Collection and analysis of 970 biological samples, providing data on bear population size and genetic connectivity, and revealing improved population trends across all four parks during the project duration.
✓ Local Platforms on Coexistence were established in all four areas, holding 24 stakeholder meetings with over 800 representatives.
✓ Donation of 62 Livestock Guarding Dogs (LGDs) to breeders, with recipients getting regular veterinary care and follow-up visits.
✓ Bear-friendly product labels were awarded to 48 producers across Greece and Italy, generating measurable economic benefits.
OBJECTIVE:
Overcome the current fragmented practices of wolf management and achieve an overall population-level management.
RESULTS:
✓ Establishment of a network of 5,574 operators who received training through 123 workshops and conducted comprehensive, cross-border, science-based monitoring.
✓ Establishment of seven new Anti-poisoning Dog Units (APDU) to search for poisoned baits, conducting more than 1,000 interventions.
✓ Ecotourism activities exceeded expectations with 143 events and 3,264 participants; 223 public events reached 57,938 people.
✓ Nominee for the 2026 LIFE Award for Nature Protection and Biodiversity.
OBJECTIVE:
Save virgin forest areas through in the Southern Carpathian mountains by land purchase and conservation agreements in five Natura 2000 network sites.
RESULTS:
✓ Restoration of over 1,200 ha of habitat, with 2.4 million native trees planted and 20 km of erosion tracks rehabilitated.
✓ Purchase and securing of 2,757 ha of natural forest.
✓ Reintroductions of two keystone species (81 bison and 62 beavers), forming viable populations that contribute to ecosystem regeneration.
✓ Creation of 81,000 ha of no-trophy-hunting areas, reducing overall conflicts by 41 % reduction and carnivore-related incidents by 10 %.
OBJECTIVE:
Prevent the extinction of the Dinaric – SE Alpine lynx population with translocations from the Carpathian Mountains and improved connectivity.
RESULTS:
✓ Reverse population decline by translocating 18 lynxes (12 into the Dinaric, six into the Alpine population), expanding the distributional range from 1,500 to 3,300 km2.
✓ Preparation of population guidelines, an action plan for Slovenia, an expert study in Croatia and a management plan for Italy.
✓ Scientific-based monitoring using genetic methods. GIS supported databases continued beyond the project, with ongoing cross-border cooperation among stakeholders.
✓ Numerous communication activities were implemented including two films, 20 professional, 40 amateur video clips, and a short cartoon on Lynx.
OBJECTIVE:
Promote ecological and socio-economic conditions needed to support the viability of the fragmented and highly isolated Portuguese subpopulation of the Iberian wolf.
RESULTS:
✓ Implementation of the most collaborative and extensive wolf monitoring framework ever carried out south of the Douro River, mapping predation hotspots areas and areas of recolonisation.
✓ Implementation of damage prevention measures (108 guardian dogs and 52 fences), supporting 142 livestock breeders.
✓ Removal of 32 illegal snares by a civil surveillance team.
✓ Creation of the first global hunting management plan for roe deer specially designed to increase wolf prey.
OBJECTIVE:
Reduce Animal-Vehicle Collisions (AVC) with (Marsican) brown bears, Iberian lynx and wolves, through the installation of innovative roadkill prevention tools.
RESULTS:
✓ Significant reduction in AVCs through installation of 26 AVC prevention systems, 36 km of virtual fence, and 97 awareness info boards.
✓ Improvement of the ecological connectivity though maintenance of 98 crossing structures and vegetation clearance alongside 27 km of road sections.
✓ Implementation of 104 local awareness events reaching approx. 400,000 people and 39 networking events engaging around 200 professionals.
OBJECTIVE:
Favour permanent settlement of bears in the Serra do Courel and guarantee connectivity between with main bear reproductive nucleus in the western Cantabrian subpopulation.
RESULTS:
✓ 142 small forests planted across 145 ha, with 107,805 native trees and shrubs established to support the south-westward expansion of the Cantabrian brown bear population.
✓ Coexistence measures: 154 solar electric shepherds distributed, and 168 beekeepers informed on protection.
✓ A specialised ranger intervention team trained and equipped for bear capture, transport, and monitoring.
✓ Public awareness: 32 community meetings with 384 local participants, plus an educational campaign across 15 schools.
OBJECTIVE:
Promote knowledge and awareness of the Natura 2000 network and the brown bear between inhabitants of the bear areas of the two most small and endangered subpopulations in Spain.
RESULTS:
✓ Stakeholder engagement: 12 multiplier events attended by 269 local leaders and 15 workshops with 362 participants from the tourism, hunting and farming sectors.
✓ Public awareness: 64 community talks reaching 1,738 residents, 227 environmental education sessions with nearly 11,000 students, a travelling exhibition about Natura 2000 displayed at 15 locations, and participation in 17 events reaching over 43,000 people.
✓ Media reach through 254 news items across 86 media outlets, 18 video clips with over 24,000 views, 22 publicity inserts, and over 820,000 social media views on 240 social media posts.
Other EU-funded projects
- Standardise genetic and analytical procedures to reliably identify wolf-dog hybrids.
- Assess phenotypic effects of dog introgression on wolf behaviour, life-history traits and ecology using whole genome sequencing and captive experiments.
- Evaluate the technical feasibility and social acceptability of alternative wolf-dog hybridisation management strategies.
- Provide science-based policy support on large carnivore conservation, engaging key stakeholders and raising public awareness.
- Assess wildlife-livestock interactions and pastoral systems across 12 European countries through face-to-face interviews with pastoralists and a questionnaire to landowners and hunters.
- Evaluate emerging technologies, and conduct socio-economic cost-benefit analyses to identify strategies for reconciling wildlife management and High Nature Value farming.
- Co-create knowledge through a Multi-Actor Approach with a Stakeholder Advisory Board and the EU Platform on Coexistence.
- Develop a Roadmap for Coexistence with policy recommendations.
- Establish a harmonised monitoring framework for wolves, lynx and bears across 11 regions and six countries.
- Combining GPS telemetry, camera trapping, genetic sampling and mobile tools to generate reliable cross-border population data.
- Implement and validate conflict prevention and poaching measures through pilot actions in four cross-border areas.
- Build cross-border stakeholder platforms to engage local communities, hunters, farmers and authorities.
Useful resources
- LIFE EUROLARGECARNIVORES: Overview of LIFE projects on large carnivores and their conflict-prevention measures
- European Commission - DG ENV: LIFE and human coexistence with large carnivores
- European Commission, Istituto di Ecologia Applicata, IUCN/SSC Large Carnivore Initiative for Europe: Large Carnivore Conservation and Management in Europe: The contribution of EC co-funded LIFE projects
- Investment of the EU LIFE programme in large carnivore conservation (1992-2020)