Spectacled Bear Conservation in the Northern Andes

The spectacled bear (Tremarctos ornatus) is Latin America’s only bear species and one of the largest animals in the Northern Andes of Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador. Despite their size, spectacled bears are elusive creatures—they mostly inhabit high altitude páramo grasslands and dense cloud forests in steep, remote regions where they are rarely seen. Over the past several decades, deforestation has caused dramatic declines—recent estimates suggest that only 18,000 bears survive in the wild today.

Since 1986, WCS has conducted research to better understand spectacled bears. Based on research results, WCS implements conservation programs to save bears from habitat loss and other threats.  As a result of WCS’s initial bear projects in the Venezuelan Andes, a series of protected areas were declared in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Today WCS leads bear conservation projects across the species’ range, from Venezuela to Bolivia. Because bears require large expanses of forest and live at low population densities (a population may require at least 500 km2 of contiguous forest), WCS carries out conservation efforts at the local and regional scales.

The Human Aspect
Unsustainable agricultural expansion is reducing the quality and quantity of spectacled bear habitat and degrading important watersheds. In Colombia, for example, 75% of the human population is concentrated in the Andes. As farmers more commonly settle in páramo and cloud forest ecosystems, negative interactions with bears increase (e.g., crop raiding and livestock predation). Spectacled bears are revered by some Andean indigenous groups as spiritual mediators. Yet today farmers’ perceptions of the species are often negative.

Threats
Forest fragmentation and poaching are the two major threats facing the spectacled bear. The species’ original range of 490,000 km2 of forested habitats in the Andes from Venezuela to Bolivia is now reduced by more than half. In the Northern Andes, the spectacled bear survives in approximately 113 blocks of forest, forty percent of which are probably too small to sustain a viable long-term population.

WCS Activities
Led by Venezuelan ecologist Isaac Goldstein, WCS’s uses four approaches to protect spectacled bears in the Northern Andes:

1. Determine effects of habitat fragmentation. WCS researchers evaluate how spectacled bear populations adapt to habitat loss and fragmentation. WCS data indicate that to some extent bears are capable of moving across non-forested areas, offering some hope to long-term conservation efforts in agricultural regions.  WCS collects genetic samples from bears to monitor if protected areas are large enough to prevent inbreeding.

2. Investigate variation in altitudinal range. WCS teams explore remote, low altitude forests—areas previously thought to be outside the bear’s range—where bears have been reported. WCS field surveys indicate the bear’s range extends into remote regions along the Ecuador-Colombia frontier in the Amazon Basin, the least explored part of their range.  

3. Reduce crop and livestock raiding. Sporadic incidents of conflict with livestock and farmers result in bear poaching. WCS assesses which factors contribute to the negative interactions (e.g., under what conditions do bears cross agricultural lands) in order to design appropriate corrective measures to minimize actual encounter rates.

4. Promote bear conservation. Through school presentations, exhibits at zoos in the Northern Andes and United States, and workshops with hunters and government officials, WCS builds support for bear conservation.

Important Next Steps

• Compare results of ongoing WCS bear research in Ecuador, Colombia and Bolivia to data previously collected in Venezuela and disseminate lessons learned to park managers across the bear’s range.
• Collaborate with the Cofán indigenous group in Ecuador to design a bear conservation program focusing on low altitude forests in Cofán territory.