From its inception in 1968, the International Association for Bear Research and Management (IBA) believed that its goals of assisting the science, conservation, and management of bears would be advanced if high-quality papers on bears were published and accessible. Conferences organized by IBA had become a venue for communicating ursid science, conservation, and management results but papers presented at conferences were published in numerous journals and some findings were not broadly available. In response, the occasional series titled “Bears — Their Biology and Management: Proceedings of the Xth International Conference on Bear Research and Management” (hereafter, Proceedings) was initiated in 1968 and 9 volumes under this title were produced through 1997. The Proceedings contained many papers presented at IBA conferences, and volumes were edited by conference organizers (LeCount 1999). Peer review was part of the publication process but was not standardized. By the late 1990s, some IBA members sought to improve this publication model. Questions arose about the consistency of the final products with changing editorial teams and standards. Further, conference organizers were challenged to devote time to gathering, peer-reviewing, editing, and publishing (including fund raising) manuscripts after hosting a conference. The conferences occurred irregularly (intended to occur every 3 years, but some with shorter intervals since the late 1990s), and the Proceedings were published up to 5 years after a conference because publication occurred after completion of all the papers within each volume. This delay made it difficult for authors to have confidence that their work would reach readers in a timely way, and for readers to become familiar with the series as a reliable source of scientific information about bears. Thus, the IBA Council during the late 1990s discussed alternative models, arriving at a consensus of an ongoing journal with a permanent part-time salaried Editor-in-Chief, support staff, and inclusion of articles not presented at a conference. The journal was named Ursus (Latin for “bear”) because the subject matter was focused solely on bears and this was the genus for 4 of the 8 species in the family Ursidae. The first two volumes of Ursus with the new name were numbered Volume 10 (dated 1998) and Volume 11 (dated 1999) to emphasize continuity with the 9 previous Proceedings (Table 1). These first two volumes contained papers presented at conferences in Fairbanks, Alaska, USA, and Mora, Sweden (Volume 10), and in Graz, Austria, and Gatlinburg, Tennessee, USA (Volume 11). Emphasizing the transition, Volume 10 was the first to feature artwork on the cover and spine: high-quality drawings of bears by Alaska-based artist Michael Kieney (Volume 10) and Montana-based artist George Bumann (Volumes 11–23; Fig. 1).

Table 1.

Selected milestones in the progression of International Association for Bear Research and Management (IBA) publications from the book-like “Proceedings…” to the online journal Ursus.

Fig. 1.

Cover of the Proceedings “Bears — Their Biology and Management” from the International Association for Bear Research and Management (IBA) conference held in Kalispell, Montana, USA, in 1977 and published in 1980; cover of Ursus 2003 with the artist drawing; cover of Ursus 2013 with a photograph and the old IBA logo and; the current cover format of Ursus 2022.

Uncertainty continued for years on what relationship should exist between the conferences and IBA's journal. Debate centered on the initial requirement that presenters at IBA conferences were expected to submit manuscripts for publication in IBA's journal. Proponents argued that this would strengthen the new journal. Others worried that presenters who wished to publish elsewhere would choose not to present their work at conferences, thereby diminishing the quality of conferences to attendees. Allowing conference presenters to publish in other journals, and the option for anyone studying bears to publish in Ursus, was accepted by Council. After a hybrid period during which conference presenters were encouraged to submit manuscripts, IBA Council adopted a decision to make the journal independent of its conferences in 1999.

The challenges of an independent journal became apparent with the need for editorial staff. Through the 1990s, the IBA operated on a small budget, with revenues largely from membership fees, publication sales, and donations. Page charges and publication sales represented the only direct revenue for the journal, so a portion of memberships fees was used as a supplement to hire a part time Editor-in-Chief on a contract basis, as well as contracts for technical editing, layout, printing, distribution, and mailing. Decisions by the IBA Council during the early 2000s were instrumental in creating a more permanent financial base for Ursus, independent from the conferences. Before this, conference organizers who edited the Proceedings needed, with the help of IBA members, to raise funds to finance Proceedings publication through uncertain mechanisms like prepublication sales.

The process of selecting the first Editor-in-Chief was somewhat ad hoc. The journal did not yet exist, so there was no editorial board or advisors to initiate a formal hiring process. Instead, the IBA publications committee approached several candidates and selected Dr. Richard Harris. To keep the quality of publications high and consistent in style, a technical editor was hired to prepare manuscripts for publication. Melody Munson-McGee began work on the final volume of the Proceedings (published in 1997) and continued through Ursus Volume 24 (in 2013). She was succeeded by Tracy Estabrook Boal (Volume 25 to present). These technical editors significantly improved the quality, standardization, and professionalism of papers published in Ursus.

Under the direction of Harris, Volume 12 was published in 2001 and contained some papers associated with earlier conferences but was the first volume with independently submitted papers. It was also the first to carry the International Standard Serial Number (ISSN 1537-6176) that Ursus maintains to this day. Moving from the old International Standard Book Number (ISBN) to the ISSN system further clarified Ursus' status as a journal rather than the book-like occasional Proceedings.

With the publication of Volume 13 in 2002, Ursus as a journal was established and published once per year. Publishing annually maintained the number of papers found in the Proceedings, but delayed time to publication. To reduce the lag between submission and publication, Ursus began publishing 2 issues annually in 2003. Volume 14 was also the first to be formatted and printed by Allen Press, a publisher of technical journals (including the Journal of Mammalogy), then located in Lawrence, Kansas. Earlier volumes had been formatted in-house and produced at various printers. At that time, few journals had abandoned printed copies. Although email had become common, manuscripts were still transmitted by mail, edits transmitted by mail, and printed volumes sold at conferences or directly by the IBA via mail. Papers in Ursus were only available in printed form. Michael Pelton, former President of the IBA, played a major role in distributing printed copies of the journal, which made their way around the world.

By 2004, ease of accessing Ursus articles in electronic form reduced the need for the printed version. The nonprofit electronic bundler of scientific journals named BioOne ( https://bioonepublishing.org/) contained few titles in the early 2000s but its emphasis on smaller biologically focused journals was a good fit for Ursus. BioOne is sponsored in part by the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS, part of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and publisher of the journal BioScience); therefore, including Ursus in BioOne required the IBA to become associated with AIBS. Thus in 2004, access to Ursus content became available to those with electronic access to any library that subscribed to BioOne (e.g., many academic institutions). As a subsidiary benefit, Ursus began receiving modest royalties from BioOne, based in part on the number of article downloads, thus helping with finances. Shortly afterward, all issues of the Proceedings, as well as all prior volumes of Ursus, became available online through the archival service JSTOR ( https://www.jstor.org/; Table 1).

Transition to electronic handling of manuscripts from submission, review, and publications started in 2007, when Ursus took advantage of the online manuscript processing services of Allen Press, called AllenTrack, then to PeerTrack, and then to Editorial Manager ( https://www.editorialmanager.com/ursus), which is used today. The shift to online processing reduced the time from submission to publication. Some Council members noted that the reach and appeal of Ursus could be enhanced if the journal had an Impact Factor managed by the Institute for Scientific Information (later absorbed by Clarivate) as part of their Scientific Citation Index. The leadership team of Ursus led by Harris initiated the process of qualifying for an Impact Factor with the first one received in 2010.

Another improvement came in 2011, when early online publication on BioOne was added as a service. This meant that papers were published in pdf format (with page numbers and fully citable) as soon as proofs were corrected. Although the print version continued to appear twice yearly, a paper that missed a deadline no longer waited for the pdf of the paper to appear with the print copy of Ursus. It also meant that the order of papers in the paper version reflected the order accepted.

In 2012, the first permanent Editor-in-Chief, Harris, stepped down and worked with IBA Council to establish a process for selecting the next Editor-in-Chief. Following this process, Dr. Jerrold (Jerry) Belant, who had been an Associate Editor of Ursus, took over as Editor-in-Chief aided in the transition by Harris. In 2013, Ursus was modernized in appearance with the approval of IBA Council with the IBA logo and a photo of a bear species or associated habitat on the cover. Also, with the assistance of technical editor Tracy Estabrook Boal, the guidelines for submitting manuscripts were revised to streamline the submission format. A shift in Associate Editors, with several members stepping down after years of service, resulted in new biologists joining in this role with an increase in overall number. Online-only publication was becoming common in wildlife- and ecology-oriented journals but IBA Council was concerned about the economic viability of Ursus.

During the mid-2010s, manuscript submissions from outside North America increased, which reflected increased research in these areas. These contributions helped expand the global impact and reach of Ursus and supported the IBA's mission.

In 2017, Belant stepped down as Editor-in-Chief and the IBA Council selected Dr. Jon Swenson to replace him. Swenson and Belant worked together during a transition period until 2018. In response to the increasing proportion of submitted manuscripts from outside North America, Belant recommended that Swenson recruit 5 bear biologists from outside North America as Associate Editors. After becoming editor, Swenson presented the IBA Council with a proposal for Ursus to become an online-only journal. He had experienced a similar transition as Editor-in-Chief of Wildlife Biology. His 2018 report to Council addressed the economic ramifications of online-only publishing, allowing open access, publication charges, benefits to IBA members, continuing the 2-year embargo before Ursus papers could be made publicly available to nonmembers of the IBA, and whether papers should be published as they were ready or in issues. The report also addressed whether to continue the 2-year embargo that Council had placed on Ursus papers before they could be posted on public websites available to nonmembers of the IBA, although authors were allowed to distribute reprints and electronic copies.

Ursus transitioned to an online-only journal in 2019 (Volume 30). Papers were published online as soon as they were ready. The publication fee was changed to a charge per paper rather than per page (US$500 for articles ≤10 pages and US$700 for those >10 pages). As in the past, waivers were provided for authors who could not pay the charge. An additional charge was made to authors for immediate open access (US$400) and not after the 1-year embargo now decided by Council. Open access is important because many European universities and agencies require open-access publishing, but Ursus would lose its revenue from BioOne if >50% of the papers were published immediately as open-access.

At the end of 2021, Swenson stepped down and Dr. Andrew Derocher was selected as the new Editor-in-Chief with assistance from Swenson during the transition. Starting with Volume 34, the cover photo for Ursus was selected from images submitted for consideration and with Volume 35, the cover photo was selected by IBA members polled to select their choice from a subset of submitted images with a similar process for future covers (Fig. 1). Continuing the trend to internationalize Ursus, Derocher recruited 9 new Associate Editors emphasizing younger researchers from across the geographic range of ursids. Currently, Associate Editors are from 12 countries (i.e., Australia, Canada, Columbia, Croatia, India, Italy, Japan, Norway, Pakistan, Poland, Spain, and the United States). While always an option, authors were encouraged to publish abstracts in second languages to increase global accessibility of results. In 2023, Allen Press was taken over by KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd. based in Glenn Allen, Virginia, USA, which is a subsidiary of CJK Group Inc., headquartered in Brainerd, Minnesota, USA. Retention of staff and the Editorial Manager system resulted in minimal disruption to Ursus.

Ursus, with its foundation in the Proceedings, has continued to serve the IBA primary goal of providing a venue for the publication of peer-reviewed papers on the science, conservation, and management of all eight ursid species. Collectively, the Proceedings and Ursus have published >1,000 papers over 55 years. A search on ISI Web of Science (Clarivate Journal Citation Reports) for “Ursus or Ailuropoda or Melursus or Helarctos or Tremarctos” indicates that Ursus is the top source for publications on bears followed by the Journal of Wildlife Management, PLoS One, and Journal of Mammalogy. Between 2019 and 2023, Ursus had a journal Impact Factor ranging from 0.6 to 1.3 and a cited half-life of 13.1 years (Clarivate Journal Citation Reports): positive indicators of the reach and enduring nature of papers. A taxon-specific journal like Ursus will not have a high Impact Factor because the number of papers that reference bears will be small relative to other research fields, but it is clear the contribution is profound.

The future of Ursus as a leading venue for publishing remains bright and the IBA Council is striving to keep it as a vibrant and accessible source of high-quality bear-related information. Open access provides new opportunities but may challenge IBA finances, so the outcome of this direction is uncertain. Ursus is a taxon-specific international journal in a changing publishing environment. The past challenges have been met and the journal and IBA Council has adapted. Similar to the amazing adaptations of ursids, Ursus will continue to evolve.