We are pleased to share these recent URSUS articles with you. The three new articles are open access and can also be viewed through your IBA membership account link to BioOne.
Risk of bear-inflicted human injury in Yellowstone National Park
Kerry A. Gunther, Kelly M. Atkins
Ursus 2025 (36e1), 1-17, (3 February 2025) https://doi.org/10.2192/URSUS-D-24-00010R1
KEYWORDS: American black bear, backpacking, bear-inflicted human injury, camping, grizzly bear, hiking, horse pack-trips, outdoor recreation, Ursus americanus, Ursus arctos, Yellowstone National Park
Open Access Article
Yellowstone National Park, USA, is a popular tourist destination with sympatric populations of grizzly bears (Ursus arctos) and American black bears (U. americanus). It receives >4 million recreational visits annually, and bear–human interactions are common. Many visitors are concerned about the risks of recreating in bear habitats, and wildlife managers are interested in knowing the risk of bear attack to inform safety messaging, reduce the frequency of bear attacks, and/or to address concerns regarding reintroduction of grizzly bears. To address those objectives, we analyzed 45 years (1979–2023) of recreational use statistics and bear attack data to estimate the risk of injury by bears while visitors are engaged in different recreational activities, including front-country recreation, overnight camping in roadside campgrounds and backcountry campsites, and backcountry hiking and horseback riding on overnight trips. We used generalized linear models to estimate the effects of these different types of use and of bear species on the rate of bear-inflicted human injury in the park. We found overall rates of injury were low (∼1/3.6 million visits caused by grizzlies and ∼1/23.2 million visits caused by black bears) and have decreased concurrently with increasing park visitation. Risk of injury varied by activity type and bear species involved. Users of vehicle-accessible campgrounds had a ∼98% lower rate of bear-inflicted injury than those in backcountry campsites. There was a marginally significant (P H 0.088) effect of species on the rate of injury to overnight users (stock riders and backpackers combined) with the rate of injury caused by grizzly bears being ∼5× that of black bears. When considering all use types combined, grizzly bears caused a ∼6.5× higher rate of injury than black bears did. Backcountry hikers are most at risk of injury from grizzly bears. Educational efforts should focus on activity types most at risk and emphasize science-based strategies for reducing surprise encounters.
Ursus: A history of the journal
Richard B. Harris, Jerrold L. Belant, Jon E. Swenson, Andrew E. Derocher
Ursus 2025 (36e2), 1-5, (20 March 2025) https://doi.org/10.2192/URSUS-History-36-1
KEYWORDS: history, journal, Ursus
Open Access Article
The International Association for Bear Research and Management has a publishing history dating back to 1968 with proceedings associated with their conferences. To improve the consistency and timeliness of publications, the peer-reviewed journal Ursus was established in the late 1990s and has become an important source for papers on all eight ursid species. This paper examines the history of the journal and the issues affecting its development over time. Ursus, with its foundation in the conference proceedings, has published over 1,000 papers. Collectively, the papers provide a significant source of information on the conservation, ecology, and management of bears.
Historical range of brown bears
Faiza Lehrasab, Hira Fatima, Tariq Mahmood, Muhammad Sajid Nadeem, Faraz Akrim, Shaista Andleeb, Muhammad Mushtaq
Ursus 2025 (36e3), 1-9, (27 March 2025) https://doi.org/10.2192/URSUS-D-23-00020R2
KEYWORDS: brown bear, current range, habitat fragmentation, historical range, protected areas, range contraction, range reconstruction, Ursus arctos
Open Access Article
Brown bears (Ursus arctos) are widely distributed in North America, Europe, and Asia; however, their range has decreased. They are categorized as being a species of Least Concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) red list, but some fragmented, small populations are close to extirpation. Importantly, the global historical range of brown bears is poorly documented, therefore, we reconstructed and estimated their historical range (∼1,000 yr ago). We also analyzed protected areas in their past and current ranges. We retrieved data on the occurrence of brown bears from the literature and used Google Earth Pro software to obtain the coordinates of locations to reconstruct their historical range. Data on the species’ current range were obtained from the IUCN red list. Analyses showed that the range was larger in historical times, encompassing 52.16 million km2 area as compared with its current range of 30.7 million km2, resulting in a range contraction up to approximately 41.2%. In the past, 49,118 protected areas covering approximately 3.5 million km2 were present in the species’ range but as a result of range contraction, the current range includes only 18,300 protected areas covering approximately 2.3 million km2. The brown bear range in protected areas has contracted by about 34% (1.2 million km2) indicating that even the protected areas have not functioned to maintain their range.