Understanding the processes related to wildlife recoveries is not only essential in solving human – wildlife conflicts, but also for identifying priority conservation areas and in turn, for effective conservation planning. We used data from a citizen science program to study spatial aspects of the demographic and genetic recovery of brown bears in Greece and to identify new areas for their conservation. We visually compared our data with an estimation of the past distribution of brown bears in Greece and used a point process approach to model habitat suitability. We then compared our results with the current distribution of brown bear records and with that of protected areas. Our results indicate that in the last 15 years bears may have increased their range by as much as 100%, by occupying mainly anthropogenic landscapes and areas with suitable habitat that are currently not legally protected, thus creating a new conservation reality for the species in Greece. This development dictates the re‐evaluation of the national management and conservation priorities for brown bears in Greece by focusing in establishing new protected areas that will safeguard their recovery. Our conservation approach is a swift and cheap way of identifying priority conservation areas, while gaining important insights on spatial aspects of population recovery. It will help prioritize conservation actions for brown bears in Greece and may serve as a model conservation approach to countries facing similar financial and logistic constraints in the monitoring of local biodiversity or facing challenges in managing rapid population recoveries. Our conservation approach appeared to be particularly suited to identifying priority areas for conservation in areas with recovering wildlife populations and may therefore be used as an ‘early‐warning’ conservation system.

The survival of large carnivores in a rapidly changing, human‐modified world depends largely on their movements; therefore, understanding how movement patterns change within space and time and which factors affect them most is of paramount importance for their conservation. In a case study in Greece using brown bearsUrsus arctos, we evaluated the movement ecology of a recovering population in a Mediterranean landscape, where human activity is high. We found that during daytime bears moved less, when ambient temperatures were high and when they were far away from forests and close to settlements, where human activity is expected to be high. During night‐time, when human activity and mortality risk are expected to be low, bear movement was higher farther from forested areas, close to roads, and in less rough terrain. Although bear movement patterns in Greece were generally similar to those of other bear populations in Europe, home ranges were smaller than in northern populations. These findings indicate that increased human activity and high ambient temperatures reduce bear movement and ultimately contribute to the smaller home ranges in the warmer and human‐dominated Mediterranean landscapes. We suggest that management and conservation actions in Mediterranean landscapes should aim on separating humans and bears in space or time, so that bear movements are not constrained and, in turn, minimum home ranges that cover their essential requirements are guaranteed.