Tibetan brown bear of 'Yeti Legend' spotted for first time in India

Under the cover of darkness, an elusive creature known as Tibetan brown bear of the "Yeti Legend" meandered across the landscape in the mountains of eastern India as the shaggy beast had no idea that someone, or rather something, was observing.

According to a news release from the Forest and Environment Department of Sikkim on January 14 released on Facebook by Sikkim News 24, the World Wildlife Fund in India and the Sikkim Forest Department set up an "extensive" number of trail cameras to scan wildlife in the mountainous state of Sikkim.

On December 1, the department reported that a shaggy creature was captured on camera by a trail camera close to a structure in Mangan District. Images display the cuddly creature approaching an object outside the structure that resembles a bucket and turning to face the camera.

Forest officials stated that the Tibetan brown bear, sometimes called the Tibetan blue bear, is "one of the rarest subspecies of bears in the world" and is "rarely sighted in the wild." The paler yellow-brown "scarf-like collar" around the bear's neck serves as a distinguishing feature.

According to a 2017 study, Tibetan brown bears are thought to be the "basis of the yeti legend."

In order to evaluate the number of Tibetan brown bears in the region, wildlife experts stated that they will keep researching Sikkim's fauna.