Although the following article is not about alpacas, I believe that everyone who owns or loves Alpacas will find it to be of interest. Not only does the Andean bear share much of the same habitat as the alpaca, but both species originally migrated south from North America. What affects the homeland of the alpaca affects those of us who own them.
The following article was published in the July/August issue of "Nature Conservancy Magazine". Their email address is: Rgeatz@tnc.org
Sent to us by Ken Madl 5-5-00
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Andean Ambassador
by William Stolzenburg
There once was a bear of the Andean cloud forest, a shaggy phantom veiled in mountain mists, whose spirit was believed to bridge heaven and earth, whose blood was a holy communion. Ucumari -- the bear with the mystical power -- though seldom seen was deeply sensed.
The mountains these days harbor a bear whose character is stained with the blood of livestock and blamed for the ruin of crops. It is known as cattle killer and corn raider, a creature of the vermin class whose worth is more often weighed by the market price of its hide.
Cultural icon to agricultural pest, the diametrical beasts describe one biological entity, Tremarctos ornatus, the Andean bear. What separates the two owes little to any evolutionary leap of bears, but much to the rapid mutation of Andean society. None of which would amount to more than a riddle of historical trivia if not for the fact that the Andean bear, South America's only bear, is endangered. The bear's mountain refuges have been disappearing under cornfields of itinerant farmers and pastures of wealthy ranchers. It has been squeezed onto shrinking islands of habitat and pushed into fatal conflicts with people overrunning the hills. And although its champions openly fear for the future of the wild species Tremarctos ornatus, they fear as much for the people who now displace it and for the wilderness to which both are tied. They see in the failing health and spirit of the Andean bear a reflection of Andean society.
"Nobody knows how many Andean bears there are," says the bear's eminent biologist, Bernie Peyton, in an ironic introduction to the most comprehensive if not confounding report on the bear's status. The four-year, 60-person survey of the Andean bear, led by Peyton, calculates some 18,000 to 65,000 bears surviving over the whole of its South American range. The new numbers are not, caution the report's authors, suggesting any sort of comeback for the bear. "They may be doing better than what is generally reported," says Peyton. "But serious threats exist." There may be more bears, but there are no more safe bears.
The bear in question is a versatile animal; roaming South America's Andes from cactus-studded desert valleys up through dripping cloud forests and beyond windswept paramo grasslands where it leaves its flat-footed man-like prints in the alpine snow. Excepting the puma and the human species, no other land-bound animal spans the latitude and elevation traversed by the Andean bear.
Peyton, a 20-year student of the bear who is based at the University of California at Berkeley, has witnessed in his Andean wanderings the essence of the bear's continental demise. Landless peasants from overcrowded cities at the feet of the Andes -- from the burgeoning barrios of Quito, Bogotá, Cusco, La Paz -- have been fanning up and out into the mountains. With encouragement from governments frantic to relieve the city's burdens, they clear the cloud forest for small family farms. Within three or four years, the thin tropical soils inevitably fail their crops or sluice through erosion gulleys to the valley. Bankrupted in the dust, the campesino family pulls up stake and slashes another five acres higher into the cloud forest.
In their wake, the commercial ranchers are waiting with large herds, political backing and profits to be had on pasture cleared for free. And as the slash-and-burn agriculture shrinks the cloud forest, displaced bears of the forest return their trespassers' favor, harvesting the farmers' corn and untended herds. There, also, they often find the farmer, waiting with a gun.
The campesinos' roadcuts have exposed the bear's hideouts to the military, civil police, sport hunters and all others bearing money, guns and a common desire to shoot bears. The easy new access has also brought foreign merchants seeking their piece of the bear: Farmers in Ecuador's Cayambe-Coca biological reserve have been offered $115 by Korean businessmen -- prospecting for the ursine version of snake oil -- for each bear gall bladder they could supply. In all five countries where the Andean bear is known, there are laws against shooting them; in none are they enforced.
THE FIRST BEAR
A migrant from North America, the first bear ambled into the Andes two million years ago.
The southbound bear -- an offshoot of a Pleistocene behemoth three times the size of America's most formidable grizzly -- followed the mountain coolness, above the swelter of the tropical basins, and found there a land light in competition and rich with evolutionary opportunity. By the time the people arrived, the bear had spanned the Andes, from Panama to Argentina, from elevations of 800 to 15,000 feet, from a desert whose annual precipitation is measured in millimeters of mist, to a cloud forest drenched by 12 feet of rain.
The Andean settlers came to know their bear as one of supernatural powers. From the ancient farmers pre-dating the Incan empire come descriptions of the bear as a symbol of change, a link between heaven and earth, between the underworld of the jungle and the upper world in the high Andean peaks. The bear was the talisman of the early farmer, who at the season of planting would journey for days, climbing nearly 20,000 feet into the Andes to return with sisyphean effort shouldering a chunk of healing ice from the land of the bear. Mestizo horseman a century ago would lasso the bear and kill it with clubs, to drink its blood warm and communicate with their gods.
The bear of myth comprised much of what was known of the bear when Bernie Peyton began his studies of them in the 1970s. With a rucksack and a passion for walking, Peyton trailed the cloud forest phantom through its mountain kingdom. Depending in which valley or village he stopped, he would hear tales of the spectacled bear (for the white fur that frames its eyes and face), bromeliad-eating bear, cow-eating bear, white-fronted bear, red-fronted bear, the savage, the bear with mystical power -- all of them founded in biological truth.
In a silent wake of footprints, hair, clawmarks and scats, Peyton reconstructed a resourceful and nimble predator of plants, a 300-pound high-wire artist harvesting orchids, fruits and bromeliads festooning the branches of the cloud forest. This bear was a problem solver, with a talent for getting at things others couldn't. Thwarted by trees too big to get its paws around, the bear would employ nearby trees and vines as ladders. In a Peruvian desert valley Peyton watched a bear climb 20 feet up a cactus pole to reach the apple-red fruits at its tip; he heard of another wielding the long pole of the agave flower to knock the cactus' fruits to its feet. This bear was a delicate brute, sitting high in the windswept grassland of the Andean paramo, daintily stripping leaves from pineapple-hide bromeliads as one would a steamed artichoke; and in a change of mood, turning into a furred back-hoe, ripping the barrel-sized plants whole out of the ground. This bear was in tune to the forest's rhythms, the sow timing the birth of her cubs to coincide with the fruiting of favorite trees.. In an unmatched blend of finesse and power, the Andean bear had secured a gigantic niche overlapping nearly every ecosystem in the Andes.
But in many places, Peyton found the niche missing its bears. In Machu Picchu National Park, a park he judged to be nearly 100 percent suitable for bears, he found a lowly third of it occupied. As he and others looked elsewhere, the Machu Picchu scenario would be echoed up and down the Andean cordilleras, accounting for population estimates as low as 2,000 bears in the wild. Had the bears been shot out? Peyton concluded they had.
In 1973 the Andean bear was listed by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources as vulnerable to extinction.
Official standing notwithstanding, the Andean bear is losing ground. With the most recent and extensive census, the bear's scarcity was not so much refuted as redefined. The bear is predictably missing from places where roads have dissected the forests and where cattle from above and corn from below are narrowing the bands of prime, fruit-bearing trees. Bears stranded in subpar patches of Peruvian scrub are showing up stunted in size and scarce in birth of cubs. Despite a worldwide breeding program that manages a caged population of nearly 200 bears, and despite a controversial fad to reintroduce captive bears to the forests, the true bear has faded in step with the ongoing conversion of the Andean ecosystem.
To conservationists schooled in ecology, the bear is a flagship species, a metaphor for saving Andean nature. Sixty-seven percent of Latin America's endemic species live in only 5 percent of Latin America, on the eastern slopes of the Andes. For its size, the cloud forest is three to five times as diverse in species as the richest lowland rainforests of the Amazon.
In the conservation of the Andes, the bear's role may be more than symbolic. In many of the bears' scats, Peyton finds the avocado-like pits of fruits from the Lauraceae family of trees, sprouting from within. No other animal has revealed the bear's capacity to sow these seeds. Peyton believes the bear may be the primary agent of dispersal for one of the three most important lumber trees in the northern Andes.
THE BEAR'S FUTURE
Peyton's report outlines 58 national parks, reserves or sanctuaries with Andean bears. Among them are several stretching more than 475,000 acres, big enough to house what biologists refer to as a viable population -- that is, one unlikely to disappear by the bad luck of nature's inevitable cataclysmic plague, drought or storm.
Those in charge of the parks are surely, if inadvertently, taking the bear into consideration. In Venezuela, the government park agency INPARQUES has tripled the extent of their national park system to accommodate the bears. In 1993 and 1994, the Ecuadoran government doubled a 5,000-acre refuge of prime bear habitat and, in Bolivia, the country's biggest bear area was more than doubled in 1988 when the 1.6-million-acre Carrasco National Park was added to the border of Amboro National Park.
"The Andean bear is a critical species for us," says Greg Miller, director of The Nature Conservancy's Andean program. The Conservancy, under its Parks in Peril program -- a joint conservation effort with the U.S. Agency for International Development -- supports 10 of the parks named by Peyton as most important for Andean bears. Among them are Bolivia's Amboro National Park and the Ecuadoran mountain cluster that includes the Cayambe-Coca and Antisana ecological reserves -- as Miller describes them, "some of the best, largest and least fragmented cloud forest and paramo habitat for these bears."
The gradual awakening to the plight of South America's only bear has begun elevating it to that of poster species for conservation efforts -- the giant panda of the Andes. Venezuelan biologist Edgard Yerena reports the bear is lately appearing in a media blitz of TV and radio, posters and magazines. In Colombia, bear expert Jeff Jorgenson says schoolchildren are wearing bear masks and waving bear puppets. Rangers in Colombia now wear the bear on their sleeves: It has become the official symbol of the national park system.
To Peyton this is all good and nice, but not enough. Ninety-five percent of the bear's habitat remains outside the official protection of parks, and the remaining 5 percent carries no guarantee of sanctuary. For him the bear's future is one with the farmers. "One thing I think is desperately needed is to allow the small farmers title to their land. As it is now, the government owns 80 percent of the land. Why invest in permanent agriculture or anything sustainable if the government or anybody else can just come along and take it away from you? If you don't own it, you're just going to tear down bear habitat right and left. It's that simple."
Much of what Peyton prescribes for saving the Andean bear in fact recommends saving the Andes by way of sustainable development -- a concept that speaks of local economies tapping intelligently into renewable riches of nature to supply a durable quality of life to the native people. These are strategies now being adopted by the Conservancy and its Latin American conservation partners. "The Conservancy's on the cutting edge," says Peyton. "They've recognized you have to promote stewardship among the local people."
There are signs that, for some, the bear with magical powers still roams, obscured in the shadowy moss and mists of the cloud forest. An Ecuadorian ice cream company brings blocks of ice down from the -mountains to make its ice cream. "They don't advertise it, but they know why people are coming to them," says Peyton. "They're not just going there to buy ice cream. They're going to get bear ice. To get healing water."
There are pragmatic reasons for saving the bear, but Peyton is counting on the magic. For him, to resurrect the spirit of the bear is to resurrect the spirit of the Andes. "I want people when they wake up to think of the bear. To think, 'I'm being shown how to live, it gives me hope, courage and strength. It teaches me to be human.' Andean civilization and the existence of bears goes hand in paw."
# WILLIAM STOLZENBURG is associate editor of "Nature Conservancy".
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9-11-05
The
Spectacled Bear (Tremarctos ornatus), also known as Andean Bear, has
black fur with a distinctive beige-coloured marking across its face and upper chest. Males
can weigh up to 130 kg, and females 60kg. They are located in few areas of South America,
including Western Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Western
Bolivia, North-Western
of Argentina, and
South of Panama. It is the
only bear native to South America. Next to the Giant Panda they
are the most endangered species of bear in the world, though their survival has depended
mostly on their fantastic ability to traverse even the highest trees of the Andes Amazonian
Forest Basin.
Kingdom: |
|
Phylum: |
|
Class: |
|
Order: |
|
Family: |
|
Genus: |
Tremarctos (Gervais,
1855) |
Species: |
T. ornatus Tremarctos ornatus
(Cuvier, 1825) ---------------------------------------- |
Spectacled, or Andean, Bear
Order: Carnivora
Family: Ursidae
Genus and Species: Tremarctos ornatus
South America's only bear, the spectacled bear lives in the Andes, inhabiting a variety of
habitats.
Physical Description: Whitish
or cream "spectacles" ring this bear's eyes. The light color variably extends
down to the throat and chest, giving each individual a unique set of markings. The
spectacled bear's thick coat is usually either black or brown, rarely tinged with reddish.
Size: Spectacled bears grow five to six feet long and stand two to three feet high at the
shoulder. Males grow up to 30 percent larger than females, and weigh up to 340 pounds.
Females rarely grow heavier than 180 pounds.
Geographic Distribution: Spectacled bears live in the Andes range and outlying mountain
ranges, from western Venezuela south to Bolivia. A few have been reported from eastern
Panama and extreme northern Argentina.
Status: The spectacled bear is listed as vulnerable on the World Conservation Union's
(IUCN's) Red List of Threatened Animals.
Habitat: Spectacled bears live in a variety of mountain habitats. Many live between 6,000
and 8,800 feet above sea level, although others inhabit lower elevations. Habitat varies
from rainforest, cloud forest, and mossy, stunted elfin forest to thorny dry forest. They
will also forage in grassland habitats adjacent to forest.
Natural Diet: Fruits and bromeliads are favored foods, but spectacled bears also eat
berries, grasses, bulbs, cactus flowers, insects, and small animals such as rodents,
rabbits, and birds. Near settlements, bears sometimes raid corn fields.
Zoo Diet: The Zoo's spectacled bears eat a dry-food mixture (called chow), plus
vegetables, including sweet potatoes and carrots, and fruits such as apples, oranges, and
grapes.
Reproduction: Female spectacled bears mature between four and seven years of age. During
breeding season, from April to June, a male and female will stay together for a week or
two, mating often. Cubs—usually one or two—are born from November to February.
Life Span: The spectacled
bear's longevity in the wild is unknown, but individuals have lived up to 36 years in
zoos.
Behavior: Primarily nocturnal, spectacled bears climb trees and forage on the ground. They
also build stick platforms, which are used for reaching elevated food and for sleeping.
Spectacled bears tear open masses of bromeliads with their sharp claws. Outside breeding
season, they travel alone. During the day, spectacled bears sleep in secluded spots, such
as in tree cavities, on tree platforms, between large, exposed tree roots, or in dens dug
into cliff faces.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Fun Facts:
The variability in spectacled bears' markings and color led some Peruvians to think two
bear species lived in their country—one carnivorous and one vegetarian.
The spectacled bear is an important seed dispersor, passing on seeds of laurels (valued
hardwoods) and other plants through its droppings.
The spectacled bear is the only surviving member of the short-faced bear subfamily, which
thrived until about 10,000 years ago.
Each individual spectacled bear has its own distinctive set, or "fingerprint,"
of distinct cream or whitish markings on its head, throat, and chest.
By Howard Youth
ZooGoer 28(2) 1999.
Copyright 1999 Friends of the National Zoo.
All rights reserved.
---------------------
Our friend and fellow traveler Jan Hart, encountered an Andean Bear on our
last trip to Peru, in 2000, while he was hiking at Machu Picchu. (Barb H.)
A Few Spectacled Bear Neighbors:
Andean coati (Nasuella olivacea): 
A brown-coated forest dweller
of the high Andes. Females and young travel in social groups; adult males travel alone.
While foraging on the ground, these animals hold their ringed tails high in the air.
Mountain tapir (Tapirus pinchaque): 
Another mammal unique to the
Andes, this thick-coated, small pony-sized vegetarian lives in mountain forests up to the
treeline.
Puma (Puma concolor): 
This shy predator stalks a
variety of game in a variety of habitats, including the bears' forest homes. South
America's most formidable predator, the jaguar (Panthera onca) also lives in bear
habitat, but usually only up to about 6,000 feet.
Andean condor (Vultur gryphus): 
The wide-ranging condor, one of the world's largest flying birds, glides and soars high over open, mountainous terrain, looking for carrion.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Although it is on average about five cm shorter from beak to tail than the California Condor , the Andean Condor is larger in wingspan, which ranges from 274 to 310 cm (9 to 10 ft).It is also heavier, reaching up to 11 to 15 kg (24 to 33 lb) for males and 7.5 to 11 kg (16 to 24 lb) for females. Overall length can range from 117 to 135 cm (46 to 53 in). Measurements are usually taken from specimens reared in captivity.
The adult plumage is a uniform black, with the exception of a frill of white feathers nearly surrounding the base of the neck and, especially in the male, large patches or bands of white on the wings which do not appear until the completion of the bird's first moulting. The head and neck are red to blackish-red and have few feathers. The head and neck are meticulously kept clean by the bird, and their baldness is an adaptation for hygiene, allowing the skin to be exposed to the sterilizing effects of dehydration and ultraviolet light at high altitudes. The crown of the head is flattened. In the male, the head is crowned with a dark red caruncle or comb, while the skin of his neck lies in folds, forming a wattle. The skin of the head and neck is capable of flushing noticeably in response to emotional state, which serves to communicate between individuals. Juveniles have a grayish-brown general coloration, blackish head and neck skin, and a brown ruff.
The middle toe is greatly elongated, and the hind one is only slightly developed, while the talons of all the toes are comparatively straight and blunt. The feet are thus more adapted to walking, and are of little use as weapons or organs of prehension as in birds of prey and Old World Vultures. The beak is hooked, and adapted to tear rotting meat. The irises of the male are brown, while those of the female are deep red. The eyelids lack eyelashes. Contrary to the usual rule among birds of prey, the female is smaller than the male.
From Wikipedia 2-16-09
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
11-7-04
T
H E S E N S E
O F T H E G O O S E
In the fall when you see geese heading south
for the winter flying along in the "V" formation, you might be interested in
knowing what science has discovered about why they fly that way. It has been learned that as each bird flaps its
wings, it creates an uplift for the bird immediately following. By flying in a "V" formation, the whole
flock adds at least 71% greater flying range than if each bird flew on its own.
PEOPLE WHO ARE PART OF A TEAM AND SHARE A
COMMON DIRECTION and GET WHERE THEY ARE GOING QUICKER AND EASIER, BECAUSE THEY ARE TRAVELING
ON THE TRUST OF ONE ANOTHER.
Whenever a goose falls out of formation, it
suddenly feels the drag and resistance of trying to go through it alone and quickly gets
back into formation to take advantage of the power of the flock .
IF WE HAVE AS MUCH SENSE AS A GOOSE, WE WILL
SHARE INFORMATION WITH THOSE WHO ARE HEADED THE SAME WAY WE ARE GOING.
When the lead goose gets tired, he rotates back
in the wing and another goose takes over.
IT PAYS TO SHARE LEADERSHIP AND TAKE TURNS
DOING HARD JOBS.
The geese honk from behind to encourage those
up front to keep their speed.
WORDS OF SUPPORT AND INSPIRATION
HELP ENERGIZE THOSE ON THE FRONT LINE, HELPING
THEM TO KEEP PACE IN SPITE OF THE DAY-TO-DAY PRESSURES AND FATIGUE.
Finally,
when a goose gets sick or is wounded by a gunshot and falls out, two geese fall out of the
formation and follow the injured one down to help and protect him. They stay with him
until he is either able to fly or until he is dead, and then they launch out with another
formation to catch up with their group.
IF WE HAVE THE SENSE OF A GOOSE, WE WILL
STAND BY EACH OTHER WHEN THINGS GET TOUGH.
The next time you see a formation of geese,
remember...
IT IS A REWARD, A CHALLENGE AND A PRIVILEGE
to be a contributing member of a TEAM.
ANON
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Archives listed sequentially by date.
68 Alpacas,4 Llamas, *5+ barn Cats,
& a family of barn *swallows.
* Momma Kitty had her kittens a few days ago, but we haven't seen them yet.
The swallow mom & pop & 3 little ones "flew the coop this morning".
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The Mom & Pop Barn Swallows returned May 10, 2005 (much later than the swallows at Capistrano 3-19). They were busy for about 3 weeks building a nest and laying eggs. By mid July they and the 4 little ones were all flying. To our surprise, Mom & Pop hatched 3 more babies and all are flying free, only returning at night if it is cold or rainy. I'm sure our mosquito population would be much greater without these wonderful insect catchers!
In 2006, the Swallows visited our barn in late April, then started nesting in early May.
The Swallows arrived in early May 2007 and created a number of nests, but our winds have been rather fierce in July and a few of the young birds and their nests were blown down. Of course, unfortunately, our barn cats enjoyed the picnic lunch. Since we still have few magpies, we have been enjoying a great variety of birds this spring and summer.
Hance Ranch was blessed with the birth of 5 barn cats this spring (2007) but unfortunately coyotes, foxes and cars have reduced our number to 1 - He is a wonderfully lovable yellow striped lad. The Swallows left in August & September and the Canadian Geese have returned (11-07)
The Canadian Geese have claimed squatter's rights in our field for the past couple of months.
We were without barn cats for about 3 months until friends brought us 4 of which one disappeared the first night, and in September another friend brought us Mom, Dad, and 3 little boys, of those we still have Mom & 2 of the lads along with the other 3. The barn was crowded with about 8 pair of swallows this summer. (2-09)
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
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