Rare Tibetan Brown Bear Discovered in Sikkim

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In the first-ever confirmed record of the Tibetan brown bear (Ursus arctos pruinosus) in India, camera traps installed by the Sikkim Forest Department and WWF-India recorded this rare species in the high-altitudes of North Sikkim. 

Accepted scientific name:  Ursus arctos pruinosus (Blyth, 1854)

Description:  Whilst the fur of the bear is essentially black the outer guard hairs give the bear a blue / grey appearance.

Range:  Historically found mainly on the alpine eastern Tibetan plateau (4,500 to 5,000 metres), in eastern Tibet, western China, Nepal and occasionally in Bhutan.  Remaining bears in the wild seem to be confined to eastern Tibet and to Bhutan.   A sighting was reported on the northern plateau near the historic border between Tibet and China in 2013.  A further confirmed sighting was made in a remote valley in eastern Tibet in June 2019.

Habitat: Lives in mountainous regions at high altitudes close to the tree line.

Status:  Thought to be very rare.  Listed in Appendix I of CITES and in the USA trade in blue bear specimens or parts is restricted by the Endangered Species Act.

Life span:  Unknown but assumed to be around 20 to 30 years in common with other brown bears in the wild.

Food:  Small mammals, particularly pika.  Allegedly will kill and eat livestock and enter nomad dwellings to take food.  Probably also eats vegetation and pine nuts when and where avaialble but little is known about the bears’ diet.

Behaviour:  Probably the least known and least studied of all brown bear subspecies.  Evidence indicates that the Tibetan blue bear is very shy of human contact and therefore very seldom observed.

Threats:  Threatened by the use of bear bile in Chinese medicine and by habitat loss and human conflict.

The Tibetan brown bear also known as the Tibetan blue bear is one of the rarest subspecies of bears in the world, and is rarely sighted in the wild.

Conservation Status: t has been accorded the highest protection status under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 by listing it under Schedule-I. It is also listed in Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) as a protected species.

  1. All India Radio
  2. Copyright Bear Conservation 2023

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