Baby Andean Bear!

Exciting news; Amaru has officially announced the birth of a baby Andean bear! Andean bears, also known as Spectacled bears, are an endangered species that live in the Andes mountains, ranging from Colombia to northwest Argentina. At 26 days old, this baby is not only the first captive-born Andean bear in Ecuador, but it also part of a larger program known as Project for Reproduction and Conservation of Andean Bears. This is super exciting because this birth has also provided insight to otherwise unknown behavior of this elusive bear. Cameras were place in the “nest” and preparation and care of the baby has been recorded. This in turn, provides useful information for Andean bear breeding programs. For more information on Andean bear conservation click here and view nest-cam videos here!

Photos from the nest-cam!

More photos from the nest-cam!

The press conference with the official announcement of the baby Andean bear!

Other than the official announcement of the baby bear, my last week and half has been focused on learning how to prepare and feed all of the diets, and most importantly typical and atypical behavior of all the animals in the zoo. This was at first a little daunting as I struggled to remember the location of all the exhibits and short cuts in Amaru’s winding paths (and to be honest I still get confused on how to find the tigrillos). However as the week has gone on, I have started to get the hang of things and have even started feeding some of the animals on my own!

View of Cuenca from my host family's roof.

Entrance to Amaru.

View of Cuenca from Amaru

 Andean Wolves/Los Lobos de Andes

Friendly white-tailed deer

Pecari 

Prepared diets for the Tapirs and Andean bears.

Diet preparation.

Ocelot/Tigrillo

Ocelot/Tigrillo

Yaguarundi

Owl/Buho

Puma

My Spanish is improving nicely as I have officially started taking lessons at Cazhuma. Between the zoo, lessons and my host family, I have been getting tons of practice. Strangely enough, I’ve also been brushing up on my French! One of my new housemates speaks only French and Spanish, and I have spent a few mornings speaking Spancais (Franish?!). Between the two, we manage to (mostly) communicate.

In other news, this week while washing the Tapir’s pool, a storm suddenly rushed in and I learned, to my surprise, it hails here! The hail, about the size of quarters, came down fast, hard and seemingly out of now where. Unfortunately I also learned that if there is a huge pile of hail, it is probably actually a calf-deep puddle and you should not wade through this “pile” for fun.

Hail in the Tapir exhibit!

Hail out side of Nutrician 

On Tuesday, I have plans to go and watch condors in the wild with the zoo’s owner Ernesto Arbelaez! I’m super excited to see these amazing birds in their natural habitat and for the chance to see more of Ecuador. Updates to follow shortly on this!


Chao for now!
Kristen


P.S. If you are feeling inspired and want to help Amaru and its conservation efforts, please consider donating at the National Aviary's website by entering Bioparque Amaru in the comments field.