header: Spectacled Bear
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Tremarctos ornatus (F.G. Cuvier, 1825)

THREATS

The current major threat to the survival of the Spectacled Bear is habitat loss resulting from increasing human occupancy of the mountains throughout its range.4 The development of Latin America's natural resources, such as timber and minerals, provide the infrastructure for farmers and others who wish to settle in the formerly pristine forest.4 Wilderness areas and national parks are becoming surrounded and encroached upon by small-holders and commercial operations alike. Former bear feeding grounds have been replanted with crops, especially corn.3 Increased proximity to man means bears are coming into conflict more often with farmers, who are losing their traditional respect for bears and are coming to regard them as crop-raiding pests. The problems associated with agricultural settlement have been considered most severe in Ecuador and Bolivia.4

The Spectacled Bear suffers from direct hunting, which has now become as important in population decline as habitat destruction.6 Bears are hunted for their meat (which is highly esteemed), skin (taken as a trophy), the fat (used as a folk medicine for bone bruises), and the claws (as talismans for strength and fertility). Hunting is responsible for the bears decline in the more accessible areas of scrub desert and humid forest.1 This hunting is illegal but the law is rarely enforced.4 Much of the area inhabited by Spectacled Bears is politically unstable. Drug production occurs in some areas, hampering research and conservation attempts.3 An increase in drug trafficking in the remote foothills of the Oriental Andes, particularly with further development of coca strains that thrive in wetter environments, will have an adverse impact on Spectacled Bears.6 Cases of international trade in Spectacled Bear gall bladders have been confirmed in Ecuador and are suspected in Peru.6 It is reported from Ecuador that Korean businessmen are said to be contracting campesinos to kill the Spectacled Bear for its gall bladder. Sold at US $150, each gall bladder is worth five times the minimum monthly wage in Ecuador.7

National Parks have been created within the Spectacled Bear's range, yet some lack the necessary management or political will needed to successfully maintain them. Fourteen of the 42 conservation areas which contain bears are over 250,000 ha in size6, although some are without any real status ie. the Rio Las Piedras in Manu National Park, Peru, where oil drilling started in the 1980s.3 The conservation of the bears often conflicts with the official government view of the forest as a resource to be developed. In Peru, the consolidation and decentralization of resource management agencies has placed severe strains on implementing management on the ground; there is only one Park guard for every half million acres of bear habitat, and few vehicles for transportation.6 The number of Parks infiltrated by drug traffickers has tripled in the past 15 years, now comprising half the Parks with bears.6 In many range countries, there is confusion and little concurrence on where boundaries are, let alone on whether bears reside in Parks or if Parks have conservation value for bears.6


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