Andean Bear

Hello there! My name is an Andean Bear, but lots of people call me a Spectacled Bear, too! Do you want to know why? It’s because of the special markings around my eyes. The fur is a light, fuzzy color that forms circles, making it look like I'm wearing a pair of glasses! These ‘glasses’ make every one of us unique. I live way up high in the cloudy, green Andes Mountains of South America. My home is a wonderful place where the air is always fresh and filled with a cool mist. The trees are tall and covered in moss, and it often feels like I’m living right inside a cloud. It's the perfect place for a bear like me to have an adventure every single day.

My favorite activity in the whole world is climbing! I am an excellent climber, and I spend most of my day scrambling up tall trees. My strong claws grip the bark and help me go higher and higher into the green canopy. The reason I love climbing so much is because that’s where all the yummy food is. I search for juicy fruits that are sweet and delicious, and I also love to find patches of sweet berries. For a special treat, I'll work hard to crack open some crunchy palm nuts. I am a very special kind of bear because, unlike many of my relatives, I eat mostly plants. After finding my food, I like to build myself a comfy place to rest. I pull nearby branches together and weave them into a sturdy platform. It’s like my own personal treehouse in the sky! I can sit there to eat my meals in peace and then take a safe nap, high above the forest floor.

I am proud to tell you that my family is very special. We are the only kind of bear in all of South America! Isn't that amazing? For a long time, people in the mountains knew about us, but it wasn't until the year 1825 that a scientist gave us our fancy scientific name. This helped people all over the world learn about the Spectacled Bears living in the Andes. Even though I love my home, things are changing here. My beautiful forest home is shrinking. Sometimes, this makes it tricky for me and my family to find all the yummy fruit we need to stay healthy and strong. It's a challenge, but we are good at exploring to find new places for snacks.

Even though finding food can sometimes be hard, I have a very important job in my forest home. I am a forest gardener! As I travel through the mountains eating all my favorite fruits, I do something amazing without even trying. I spread seeds all over the forest floor. From these little seeds, new trees and plants begin to grow. This helps keep my forest home healthy and strong for all the other animals who live here, too. It makes me so happy to know that I am helping my beautiful home grow, one fruity snack at a time. My journey helps people remember why it's so important to protect the forests for all the gardeners like me.