A small village in Columbia recently had a surprise visit from a spectacled bear (Tremarctos ornatus), an endangered species of bear whose territory once extended throughout the Andes Mountains of Venezuela, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Colombia. The bear was discovered by a maize farmer and his son after it had destroyed part of their field. Fortunately the farmers did not overreact to the destruction and sought a way to live with the bear instead of killing it or driving it away. The WWF Colombia is now working with villagers, teaching them how to protect and manage spectacled bears.

Only small populations of spectacled bears survive today. The bears are herbivores and feed on palms, orchids, fruits. But with the increase in habitat destruction taking place throughout their range, the bears resort to agricultural lands to find food with increasing frequency. And that's when the trouble starts to brew. Often, farmers keen for bears to depart, resort to spraying pesticides on their fields to fend-off the hungry animals.

But in the tiny hamlet of El Pensil, located within Colombia’s Massif Central district, villagers are taking a different approach: they are welcoming the endangered bear. The bear was first discovered, lumbering and corn-fed, by a maize farmer and his son:

“It seems [the bear] has become fat on all the maize he has eaten.”

The local community met to decide how to deal with the bear. They concluded it was best to let it eat the corn, they chose to let it live. A call was placed to conservation organizations that work in the area (Fundación Wii, WWF Colombia and the Colombia National Parks Unit). Conservationists came out to the village and helped them monitor the bear's activities. The bear has now returned to the Guácharos–Puracé Biological Corridor, an area of natural habitat that provides it with the food sources and protected land it needs.

Find out more: A Spectacular Spectacled Bear Story (WWF)

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