Camera collar footage is unveiling the secret lives of Andean bears (Tremarctos ornatus), South America’s only surviving ursid. A wild Andean bear in Peru was caught eating soil or clay, courting females and even cannibalizing a dead bear cub.
“It’s so hard to see an Andean bear,” says Ruthmery Pillco Huarcaya, a wildlife biologist at Amazon Conservation, a nongovernmental organization in Cusco, Peru. Scientists estimate there are fewer than 20,000 left in the wild. “And it’s even harder to see what they are doing.” Even though the bears are deep brown or black with bright spectacled faces and can weigh up to 340 pounds, they’re tricky to spot in the
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