Food/Eating Habits

Fruits and bromeliads are favored foods, but spectacled bears also eat berries, grasses, bulbs, cactus flowers and small animals such as rodents, rabbits and birds. Near settlements, bears sometimes raid cornfields.

Spectacled bears climb trees and forage on the ground. They will build stick platforms to reach elevated food and tear open masses of bromeliads with their sharp claws.

The Smithsonian's National Zoo's Andean bears eat a dry-food mixture (dog chow), plus vegetables, including sweet potatoes and carrots, and fruits such as apples, oranges and grapes.