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Swiss brown bear (image: ©2009 Josef Griffel/Swiss federal environment office)

Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The Swiss brown bear is coming home and while he’s being welcomed with open arms, he will have to get used to new rules that should make it harder for him to become too familiar with humans. The federal government laid out its brown bear management policy in 2006 after the first brown bear in a century appeared in 2005.

Four bears have since been seen in Switzerland, but two have since died, and one has disappeared.

The federal environment department has just revised the policy, putting greater emphasis on educating the public  and ensuring that the bears’ likelihood of survival is increased by making it harder for them to forage for food around human habitations.

Federal environment office information page on Swiss bears, Fre

National parks and canton Graubuenden brochure, pdf, on contact with and behaviour around bears, Fre