Fact Check: No, Photo showing bears eating apples is not from Kashmir but from a conservation centre in the US

New Delhi (Vishvas News): A photo doing rounds on social media shows black bear cubs eating apples under a tree. The caption with the post states that the photo is taken in Kashmir. Vishvas News investigated and found the viral claim to be false. The photo is taken at the Kilham Bear Center in New Hampshire, US.

Claim

A viral photo on social media shared by a Facebook page named Downtown Srinagar shows black bear cubs eating apples under a tree. The caption with the post reads: “Bears eating apples somewhere in kashmir”. The archived version of the post can be checked here.

Investigation

Vishvas News searched the photo using the Google reverse image tool. In the search results, we found the same photo on the website of Diply in a report dated September 26, 2020.

In the photo, the credit was given to a Twitter user John Fusco, a US-based screenwriter.

Using Twitter advanced search in the InVid tool we found the same photo on the Twitter account on John Fusco in a tweet posted on September 25, 2020.

The tweet did not mention the exact location of where the photo was taken but the profile description of John Fusco mentioned the link of Kilham Bear Center.

Vishvas News investigated and found that Kilham Bear Center is an animal rescue center in New Hampshire, US.

We emailed Kilham Bear Center the further investigated regarding the viral post. Debra Kilham from Kilham Bear Center responded to our email stating: “We can confirm that this picture was taken at The Kilham Bear Center, in Lyme, New Hampshire.  It is a picture of orphaned black bear cubs we are currently caring for eating a new delivery of apples that our friend John Fusco delivered to us from his orchard.”

We scanned the profile of the Facebook page ‘Downtown Srinagar’ who shared the viral post. We found that the page has followers 4,087 until this story was published.