As a scientist at the Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun and Member, IUCN/SSC Bear Specialist Group, I found the report “Black bears awake during winter cause trouble in U.S.” (‘Life page’, May 7) interesting. Similar observations have been made in India on Asiatic black bears in the Himalayan region. Our research on Asiatic black bears in the Kashmir region, Jammu and Kashmir, using telemetry has shown that the average hibernation period is now about 65 days. In the past, black bears in the Himalaya would begin hibernation around late November-early December and wake up by March-end with an average hibernation period of over 85 to 90 days. Rising temperatures in the Himalayan region in the last five decades and a delay in snowfall in December have resulted in a reduced hibernation period for black bears. This has resulted in increasing human-bear negative interactions (conflicts) leading to economic loss for people and retaliatory killing of bears in order to reduce conflicts. Similar observations have been made in Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Sikkim. With expanding research on the impact of climate change on wildlife species, more such revelations on the changes in species’ behaviour and wildlife-human interactions are expected.
S. Sathyakumar,
Dehradun, Uttarakhand
