KATHMANDU — Researchers have found brown bears in part of Nepal not beforehand recognized to host the species, prompting a name to guard this space as a bear “stronghold.”
The discovering, based mostly on camera-trap pictures, additionally expands the recognized vary of the brown bear (Ursus arctos) in Asia. It might additionally mark out the Limi Valley, in northwestern Nepal, as a “contact zone” between two subspecies of this apex predator, the researchers write in a newly revealed research.
“The bears weren’t the species we primarily arrange the digicam traps for,” research lead writer Naresh Kusi, from the Himalayan Wolves Challenge, informed Mongabay.
As a part of their analysis, Kusi and his mission staff have since 2021 run a community of 61 digicam traps throughout an space within the Limi Valley that’s half the dimensions of London. Since then, they’ve recorded pictures of species by no means earlier than confirmed exterior Nepal’s protected areas, such because the steppe polecat (Mustela eversmanii), Pallas’s cat (Otocolobus manul) and Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx).
This time round, it’s the brown bear — a species discovered all through the Northern Hemisphere, however which is so vanishingly uncommon in Nepal, at an estimated 20 people, that it’s thought of critically endangered right here. But Kusi’s staff managed to seize dozens of impartial pictures of brown bears of their camera-trapping surveys.
“Though we didn’t estimate the dimensions of the inhabitants in Limi Valley, based mostly on our research and different research on brown bears, we will say that the quantity we at the moment have seems to be like an underestimate,” Kusi mentioned.
They snapped a better variety of pictures of their 2022-2023 survey than in 2021, seemingly due to the season, he added.
“In 2021, we have been there in the summertime season. However the subsequent 12 months we went there throughout spring,” Kusi mentioned, including that brown bears are recognized to be extra energetic within the spring, when the snow hasn’t utterly melted but and folks don’t frequent the rangelands.
The researchers say the discovering is important, because it comes from a area located between the recognized ranges of two brown bear subspecies: the Himalayan brown bear (U. a. isabellinus), discovered farther west in India and Pakistan, and the Tibetan brown bear (U. a. pruinosus), discovered additional north and east as much as Tibet.
“This means that the realm could also be a ‘contact zone’ between the 2 subspecies,” Kusi mentioned.
The researchers write of their research that the invention factors to “the importance of Limi Valley as a stronghold for brown bears in Nepal and underscore[s] the significance of formally defending the at the moment unprotected wildlife habitats in Limi Valley.”
They add that the photographed bears appeared to have the bodily traits of the Tibetan brown bear, together with a white “collar” (additionally described by some researchers as a yellow “scarf”) round its neck, and black ears. However a genetic evaluation can be wanted to substantiate which subspecies they belong to — or whether or not they’re a hybrid of the Tibetan and Himalayan subspecies if certainly the “contact zone” speculation is right.
Rajan Paudel, co-author of a current research on potential bear habitats below a altering local weather in Nepal, agreed on the necessity for extra analysis into that speculation.
“One other attention-grabbing side to analyze is whether or not there are any boundaries within the Limi Valley and its environment that might have remoted brown bear populations to the east [Tibetan] and west [Himalayan] of the valley, resulting in the event of two separate subspecies,” he added.
Whereas Kusi and his staff posit that their discovering expands the recognized vary of brown bears in Nepal, analysis by Paudel and his staff means that in a warming world, the general vary for the animals is prone to shrink. Their research discovered that if the common international temperature rises on a trajectory to hit by 2.7° Celsius (4.9° Fahrenheit) by the tip of the century, brown bears in Nepal will lose greater than two-thirds of their present appropriate habitat by 2050, and 82% by 2070.
“Our research additional reveals the significance of saving the brown bears in Limi,” Paudel mentioned, echoing Kusi’s staff’s name to guard the realm. “If we handle to take action, we might probably be saving each the Himalayan and the Tibetan brown bears.”
The presence of brown bears in Nepal is as legendary because the beliefs surrounding them. Till just lately, the Tibetan subspecies had by no means been recorded within the nation. (But once more, it was a camera-trap survey that confirmed their presence in 2022.) Bears have additionally been pegged because the potential origin for the enduring Yeti fantasy.
Their presence within the Limi Valley provides to the wealth of wildlife nonetheless being uncovered within the space. The valley is situated within the trans-Himalayan area, solely a small portion of which lies in Nepal, a rustic largely located south of the Himalayas. Analysis into the natural world of Nepal’s trans-Himalayan area, house to iconic species similar to snow leopards (Panthera uncia) and wild yaks (Bos mutus), has been restricted in comparison with the lower-elevation hills and plains, the place better-known species similar to better one-horned rhinos (Rhinoceros unicornis) and Bengal tigers (Panthera tigris) are discovered.
Abhaya Raj Joshi is a employees author for Nepal at Mongabay. Discover him on @arj272.
Banner Picture: A captive Tibetan brown bear with the trademark yellowish scarf-like ‘collar’ round its neck. Picture by Aardwolf6886 by way of Flickr (CC BY-ND 2.0).
Citations:
Kusi, N., Gurung, S., Lama, D. T., Pathak, S., Pant, G., Timalsina, Ok., & Werhahn, G. (2024). New insights into the geographical distribution of brown bears Ursus arctos in Nepal. Oryx, 1-5. doi:10.1017/S0030605324000796
Baral, R., Adhikari, B., Paudel, R. P., Kadariya, R., Subedi, N., Dhakal, B. Ok., … Tsubota, T. (2024). Predicting the potential habitat of bears below a altering local weather in Nepal. Environmental Monitoring and Evaluation, 196(11). doi:10.1007/s10661-024-13253-2
This article by Abhaya Raj Joshi was first revealed by Mongabay.com on 31 October 2024. Lead Picture: A captive Tibetan brown bear with the trademark yellowish scarf-like ‘collar’ round its neck. Picture by Aardwolf6886 by way of Flickr (CC BY-ND 2.0).
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