Registered users receive a variety of benefits including the ability to customize email alerts, create favorite journals list, and save searches.
Please note that a BioOne web account does not automatically grant access to full-text content. An institutional or society member subscription is required to view non-Open Access content.
Contact helpdesk@bioone.org with any questions.
The social lives of brown bears (Ursus arctos) are still largely a mystery, partly because of the difficulty in studying the topic. Here we report on the interactions between 2 Himalayan brown bear family units at a dump site roughly 53 km outside of Srinagar, Kashmir, India. Brown bear cubs from 2 different mothers were observed playing together between 3 September and 16 October 2021, on 13 discrete occasions. These play sessions lasted 20–80 minutes (mean H 24.3 ± 4.59 standard deviation). Each interaction ended with the family units leaving independently. The relationship between the mother bears is not known, though we speculate that they may be related. Although the interactions do not constitute adoption, they do demonstrate a level of tolerance by mother bears toward cubs to which they did not give birth.
This article is only available to subscribers. It is not available for individual sale.
Access to the requested content is limited to institutions that have
purchased or subscribe to this BioOne eBook Collection. You are receiving
this notice because your organization may not have this eBook access.*
*Shibboleth/Open Athens users-please
sign in
to access your institution's subscriptions.
Additional information about institution subscriptions can be foundhere