See.
Purpose-built cameras watch from multiple viewpoints, recording still images and video through changing conditions.
AI Bear Detection & Monitoring System · Shakotan, Hokkaido
Bear intelligence
you can trust.
What’s UrsiQ?
Bear monitoring. Clearer decisions.
UrsiQ brings field cameras, image and video analysis, and timely alerts together in one wildlife monitoring system. It helps decision-makers understand what’s happening near schools, businesses like golf courses and campgrounds, trails, parks, and other community facilities so they can decide how to respond.
Field cameras send images and video to UrsiQ Core, our server platform. Our proprietary detection pipeline analyzes that evidence to detect bears and issue alerts in near real time.
Field camerasImages & video
UrsiQ CoreProprietary detection
LINE alerts
Online dashboard
From the field
Real wildlife. Real conditions.
These images from Shakotan show UrsiQ doing what it was built to do: reveal what’s happening in the field.
4,302,179Images captured and analyzed by Mark III
Manually flagged false positives: 10.
False-positive rate per image: 0.000232%.
The rate is the number of manually flagged false-positive records divided by all images captured and analyzed. Figures as of 2026-09-29 07:51 (Japan time).
The majority of false positives were caused by heavy rainfall obscuring the camera lens.
Why UrsiQ
It all started with 11 kids & an empty playground.
At Yobetsu Elementary School in Shakotan, signs of a bear could mean weeks without walking to school or playing outside. The problem wasn’t simply that bears might be nearby. It was that nobody knew.
Was the bear still there? Had it moved on? Had there really been a bear there in the first place?
UrsiQ began as a solution to that uncertainty: a way to give communities better evidence for decisions that protect people without imposing unnecessary restrictions on everyday life.
Could better information help facilitate public safety decisions?
What’s in a name?
Pronounced “ur-seek”
Bear intelligence. Connected.
Urs comes from ursus, Latin for bear. iQ stands for intelligence. Together, UrsiQ brings careful observation and clear, timely information to bear detection and alerts.
More about the name
There’s another idea in the sound of the name: “seek”—to search for. UrsiQ keeps looking for the fleeting signs that might otherwise go unnoticed. The final Q also suggests a “cue”: a signal to pay attention, or a marker that takes you to a particular moment in a video. That matters because a wildlife encounter is more than a single frame. What happens before and after—the movement, the changing angle, the brief appearance behind the leaves—can turn an uncertain glimpse into a clearer understanding. Seek the moment. Read it in context. Know when it calls for action.
There’s a happy coincidence, too. In Inuktitut—an Inuit language spoken in the Arctic, including Nunavik in far northern Québec—ursiq is the ring that connects a dog’s harness to a sled. For us, it’s a fitting image: many points of effort, connected to work together. Our cameras and sensors gather evidence in the field; UrsiQ Core brings it together, analyzes it and turns it into useful alerts.
Learn about the Inuktitut word at URSIQ →How UrsiQ helps
From observation to action.
Assess.
UrsiQ Core brings those observations together to distinguish wildlife activity from misleading glimpses and preserve the evidence.
Act.
Verified alerts bring important observations to your attention, so you can review what happened and decide how to respond.
UrsiQ Core
Proprietary detection.
Clearer decisions.
At the heart of UrsiQ is our proprietary, server-based detection pipeline. It connects image and video analysis, verification and alerts to turn field observations into evidence you can use.
One account brings your sites, wildlife observations, bear alerts and current camera views together. Review the evidence behind an alert and check system status in one place.
Read more about support
Verbium follows each site’s health, equipment and service history to keep your installation working well. We refine performance as conditions change and provide informed support, so you can focus on decisions instead of managing the technology.
BUILT IN HOKKAIDO FOR HOKKAIDO
Walking distance from the field.
Driving distance from our customers.
UrsiQ isn’t an off-the-shelf system assembled from somebody else’s ideas. At Verbium, we design and develop the hardware and software ourselves. We fabricate and paint parts, assemble and test systems, install them in the field, and service them ourselves.
That matters because improvement never has to travel through layers of suppliers or departments. If we discover that something can be done better, we can go out and change it. From power consumption to detection algorithms, a customer can call Verbium and speak directly with someone who understands that part of the system.
Built in Hokkaido. Informed by Alaska.
Our perspective also comes from having experienced life in rural Alaska, north of the 64th parallel and just south of the Arctic Circle—where grizzly bears are part of daily life.
We continue to operate an affiliate in Alaska. Alongside that connection, our ability to incorporate leading-edge image-processing and AI technology from the United States brings a broader perspective to the systems we design, build and support here in Hokkaido.
Most of all, quality and customer service aren’t simply means to an end for us. They’re goals in themselves—things we continually pursue. The result is a level of service as distinctive, responsive and customer-focused as UrsiQ itself.
The point
From uncertainty
to evidence.
Knowing what’s actually happening on the ground means better decisions—and a better chance for people and wildlife to coexist in peace. For bears to have the space to be bears. For kids to have the space to be kids.
And that’s just fine with the students at Yobetsu Elementary.
Want the details?
Explore UrsiQ’s features, components and pricing—from the intelligence inside each camera to complete field configurations and ongoing service.
Learn more about Verbium →