Ursus

Ursus includes peer reviewed articles on all aspects of bear research, management, and conservation worldwide. Beginning with 2019 Issues, Ursus will be completely online. Access to articles for the current year will be provided to  IBA members through the online IBA membership system as the articles are published. Back issues of Ursus can be purchased by contacting the IBA Director of Operations and Programs.

In addition to manuscripts reporting original research, submissions may be based on thoughtful review and synthesis of previously-reported information, innovative philosophies and opinions, and public policy or legal aspects of wildlife conservation. Notes of general interest are also welcome. Invited manuscripts will be clearly identified, but will still be subject to peer review. All manuscripts must be in English. All manuscripts are peer-reviewed, and subject to rigorous editorial standards.

Publication charges: The IBA, the parent organization of Ursus, is a non-profit, nonsubsidized membership organization. As such, it levies publication charges for papers accepted for publication to assist financing of Ursus. Starting in 2019 URSUS is going online only and charges for publication will no longer be assessed per page, but will be assessed as a two-tiered flat fee: articles 10 pages or less will be charged $500 and those longer than 10 pages will be charged $700, with a one-year embargo for availability on the IBA website. This length cut-off corresponds to the median number of pages (10.5) of papers published in the journal in 2017 – 2018. Generally, a paper consisting of 10 published pages will result from a manuscript consisting of about 25 pages with double spacing. If authors wish to have articles published immediately on the IBA website, without the embargo, there will be an additional open access charge of $400.00; the extra charge helps replace revenue that will be lost from citation services (e.g. BioOne) during the first year after publication. The Short Communications category will be retained for authors who want to signal that their article is just that; any article labelled as such must be 10 pages or less in length. Invoices for publication charges are sent to authors by the IBA Director of Operations and Programs when the length of accepted papers has been determined. An application (no fixed deadline) can be made to IBA for an in-kind publication grant to cover all or part of the publication charges for papers from projects where these charges cannot be met. Papers receiving a publication grant cannot be published Open Access. A letter to the IBA Director of Operations and Programs outlining the request for an exemption from publication charges should be made as early as possible.Ursus now provides PDF files of final articles to authors, free of charge.

E-offprint terms and conditions for papers published in Ursus:

1. Ursus will provide a pdf of papers published in Ursus free of charge to the corresponding author shortly after it has been published online by BioOne.  As long as the full bibliographic reference is given, the authors may use the pdf for educational or research purposes, personal compilations or other publications of their own work, or shared it with colleagues and anyone who requests it.  Authors are not permitted to sell the article or use it for commercial purposes.  The IBA will notify members of the publication of the paper, which they can access through BioOne as IBA members.  Nonmembers with access to a BioOne account can also access the paper for free.
2. If the authors have paid the Open Access fee, BioOne will make access to the paper open and free for everyone and it will be posted on the IBA website shortly after publication.  The authors may also post their paper on websites that are open to the public.
3. If the authors have not paid the Open Access fee, the papers will be subject to a 1-year embargo, during which they  may not be posted on publicly open websites.  After 1 year, they are fee to do so.  The IBA will also post the pdf on their website, which is open to everyone, after 1 year.

Interested in submitting a manuscript? Click below for more information.

All URSUS articles are listed below in order of most recent publication to oldest. The articles are also searchable using the search box below.