KATHMANDU – Researchers have discovered brown bears in a part of Nepal previously not known to be home to the species, prompting a call to protect the area as a bear “stronghold”.

The discovery, based on camera trap footage, also expands the brown bear’s known range (Ursus arctos) in Asia. It could also mark the Limi Valley in northwestern Nepal as a “contact zone” between two subspecies of this apex predator, the researchers write in a newly published study.

“Bears were not the species we set up the camera traps for in the first place,” study lead author Naresh Kusi of the Himalayan Wolves Project told Mongabay.

As part of their research, Kusi and his project team have been running a network of 61 camera traps since 2021 in an area of ​​the Limi Valley that is half the size of London. Since then, they have recorded images of the species never confirmed before outside Nepal’s protected areas, such as the steppe mallee (Eversman’s weasel), Pallas’s cat (Otocolobus manul) and Eurasian laughter (Lynx lynx).

This time it’s the brown bear – a species found throughout the northern hemisphere, but so rare in Nepal, with around 20 individuals, that it is considered critically endangered here. However, Kusi’s team was able to capture dozens of independent images of brown bears in their camera-capture surveys.

“Although we haven’t estimated the size of the Lime Valley population, based on our study and other studies of brown bears, we can say that the number we currently have appears to be an underestimate,” Kusi said.

They made more images in their 2022-2023 survey than in 2021, probably because of the season, he added.

“In 2021, I was there in the summer season. But the next year we went there during the spring,” Kusi said, adding that brown bears are known to be more active in the spring, when the snow has not yet completely melted and people don’t frequent the pastures.

The researchers say the discovery is significant because it comes from a region between the known ranges of two brown bear subspecies: the Himalayan brown bear (U. a. isabellinus), found further west in India and Pakistan, and the Tibetan brown bear (U. a. pruinosus), found further north and east to Tibet.

“This suggests that the area may be a ‘contact zone’ between the two subspecies,” Kusi said.

The researchers write in their study that the discovery indicates “the significance of the Limi Valley as a stronghold for brown bears in Nepal and underscores the importance of formally protecting the currently unprotected wildlife habitats of the Limi Valley.”

They add that the bears photographed appeared to have the physical characteristics of the Tibetan brown bear, including a white “collar” (also described by some researchers as a yellow “scarf”) around the neck and black ears. But genetic analysis would be needed to confirm which subspecies they belong to – or if they are a hybrid of the Tibetan and Himalayan subspecies, if indeed the “contact zone” hypothesis is correct.

Rajan Paudel, co-author of a recent study on potential bear habitats under a changing climate in Nepal, agreed on the need for further research into this hypothesis.

“Another interesting aspect to investigate is whether there are barriers in the Limi Valley and its surroundings that could isolate brown bear populations to the east (Tibetan) and west (Himalayan) of the valley, leading to the development of two separate subspecies,” a he added.

While Kusi and his team assume that their discovery expands the known range of brown bears in Nepal, Paudel and his team’s research suggests that in a warming world, the animals’ overall range may be shrinking. Their study found that if global average temperatures rise on a trajectory of 2.7° Celsius (4.9° Fahrenheit) by the end of the century, brown bears in Nepal will lose more than two-thirds of their current suitable habitat by 2050, and 82% by 2070.

“Our study further shows the importance of saving brown bears in Limi,” Paudel said, echoing Kusi’s team’s call to protect the area. “If we can do this, we could save both the Himalayan brown bears and the Tibetan brown bears.”

The presence of brown bears in Nepal is as mythical as the beliefs surrounding them. Until recently, the Tibetan subspecies had never been recorded in the country. (Again, it was a camera trap survey that confirmed their presence in 2022.) Bears have also been considered as the possible origin of the enduring Yeti myth.

Their presence in the Limi Valley adds to the wealth of wildlife still to be found in the area. The valley is located in the trans-Himalayan region, only a small part of which is in Nepal, a country located mostly south of the Himalayas. Research on the flora and fauna of the trans-Himalayan region of Nepal, home to iconic species such as snow leopards (Panthera ounce) and wild yak (Bos mutes), was limited compared to the lower elevation hills and plains, where better-known species such as the greater one-horned rhinoceros (Rhinoceros unicornis) and Bengal tigers (Panthera tigris) are found.

Abhaya Raj Joshi is staff writer for Nepal at Mongabay. Find him 𝕏 @arj272.

Banner image: A captive Tibetan brown bear with a yellowish scarf-like “collar” around its neck. Image of Aardwolf6886 via Flickr (CC BY-ND 2.0).

Quotes:

Kusi, N., Gurung, S., Lama, DT, Pathak, S., Pant, G., Timalsina, K. and Werhahn, G. (2024). New insights into the geographic distribution of brown bears Ursus arctos in Nepal. Oryx1-5. two:10.1017/S0030605324000796

Baral, R., Adhikari, B., Paudel, RP, Kadariya, R., Subedi, N., Dhakal, BK, … Tsubota, T. (2024). Predicting potential bear habitat under a changing climate in Nepal. Environmental monitoring and assessment, 196(11). two:10.1007/s10661-024-13253-2

See related story:

It’s no Yeti, but the presence of the Tibetan brown bear in Nepal is no longer a myth