



When you're a National Geographic guest at the lodge, you'll be invited to join an Inkaterra explorer guide on a private visit to the lodge's Spectacled Bears Rescue Center. Learn about the behavior and survival challenges of this rare species as you observe spectacled bears with local researchers, help with a feeding, and discuss rescue and rehabilitation efforts. For more information,



Learn more about the spectacled bear. March 16, 2016 - The Andean bear, also known as the spectacled bear, is sometimes called the Paddington bear, after the fictional bear in children's books written by Michael Bond. The spectacled bear is the only bear species in South America, and its numbers are dwindling. In Peru, the Inkaterra Machu Picchu Pueblo Hotel, a National Geographic Unique Lodge of the World, has set aside land as a rescue center for the bears.When you're a National Geographic guest at the lodge, you'll be invited to join an Inkaterra explorer guide on a private visit to the lodge's Spectacled Bears Rescue Center. Learn about the behavior and survival challenges of this rare species as you observe spectacled bears with local researchers, help with a feeding, and discuss rescue and rehabilitation efforts. For more information, click here.

Jose Koechlin:



When Michael Bond came up with a story about a bear that happened to find himself at Paddington, his first proposal was to present an African bear, but there are no bears in Africa. So somebody told him, it's South America not Africa, and in South America, there is only one species.



Carmen Soto:



The only kind of bear that lives in Peru and in South America is the spectacled, or Andean, bear.



Andean bears, because they live in the Andes from Venezuela to Bolivia. Spectacled bears, because they have colored marks around the eyes, like a mask, which continues on the neck and breast. But bears without these marks can be found. Still, they all belong to the same species, which is Tremarctos ornatus.



There is no exact number. For all of South America, we believe there are from 8,000 to 16,000 bears. Yet it is only a speculative number. Since the bears' situation is vulnerable, and they are an endemic species, they are important to Machu Picchu. Hence not only the idea of conservationist programs but also the importance of workshops and education.



One of the goals in saving the Andean bear is, for example, to preserve the forests that already exist. If the bear disappears, many of the ecosystems could collapse. This would be a very negative outcome.



Jose Koechlin:



We’re working as to having the bear as the specimen that resembles Machu Picchu. So eventually when you would talk about Machu Picchu, you would say, “Ah, the bear”. Not only the Incas that made Machu Picchu, but the bear that was part of the Inca mythology.