Alarmed by the rapid decline in spectacled-bear populations, Colombian environmental authorities and non-governmental organizations have launched a variety of initiatives to boost protection of the endangered animal.

The campaigns range from efforts to study bear migration in national-park cloud forests and páramos, where the spectacled bear (Tremarctos ornatus) is found, to a project aimed at caring for bears wounded by hunters or seized from animal trackers. Organizers also plan to dissuade peasant communities from killing the animal, South America’s only bear species, when they see
it near corn fields and cattle.

Colombia’s Ministry of the Environment, Housing and Territorial Development hopes to receive at least US$200,000 from the Dutch government this year for bear-conservation programs. Ministry officials add that US$20 million in reforestation work planned this year will benefit the spectacled bear. And regional environmental authorities, meanwhile, are spending millions more to restore biological corridors, which also could aid the animal.