Greetings from Peru!
By Maryalice Yakutchik
Lima, Peru — The capital city is shaggy with political posters. I barely read Spanish, but I'd bet my sunglasses that not a word in this spectacle of slogans addresses the plight of a certain long-time Peru resident (16,000 years, give or take) who has a short snout and absolutely no clout.
The endangered Tremarctos ornatus — commonly known as the spectacled bear — isn't high on the list of everyday concerns in this developing country. In the face of poverty and corruption, who can blame Peruvians if they're saving their worries about bears 'til "manana" — which, I'm told, doesn't necessarily mean tomorrow, but it sure as heck means not today.
But the bears' situation is dire. They might not hang on too long.
That's why it's lucky for South America's only species of "oso" (bear) that Jeff Corwin's coming to town, armed with a camera crew and seeking solutions. Who better, I ask you, to take this bear-of-a-task (both biologically and politically) by the horns? And what an appropriate place to start: Lima, site of the famed Acho Bullfight Ring, oldest in America.
Corwin flies in tonight, touching down in this capital barely long enough to taste a sip of the El Pardo Hotel's complimentary Pisco Sour, a concoction consisting of lemon juice, sugar, egg white and pisco: a grape brandy fermented in clay jugs that is the national libation of Peru. Tomorrow morning, bright and early, he and his film crew (and me, too) are catching an hour-long flight and heading southeast to Cusco.
It's there — in what was the capital of the mighty Inca empire — that Corwin will begin meeting with scientists, veterinarians, and locals whose intent it is to save the spectacled bear from extinction.
As he focuses on the plight of Peru's warmest and fuzziest creatures — named for the cream-colored rings encircling their eyes — I'll be focusing a cold, reptilian stare on him, giving an unblinking behind-the-scenes look at the makings of what promises to be a memorable Jeff Corwin Experience.
The setting: the Andes Mountains, a range so high it's second only to the Himalayas in elevation. The co-star: a medium-sized bear, second in size only to tapirs in terms of South American mammals. They may look little (compared to grizzlies, for instance), but they require a mighty range.
Spectacled bears are considered an "umbrella species," an index of the health of the 83 diverse ecosystems that make up Peru. Just a couple decades ago, some 20,000 spectacled Bears lived here. But their habitat has been hacked away at. Farmers persecute the bears as pests. Poisoning by pesticide is all too common. Though legally protected, the bears are poached for their meat. Today, the population is believed to number less than 1,000. That's not many. Not many at all.
If Corwin's chances of encountering one of these mammals in the wild seem slim, consider also the fact that they are painfully shy. Downright elusive. If he hopes to see one, Corwin will need to stay up all night — they're nocturnal — not to mention clamber to the tippy-top canopies of cloud forests — they're arboreal.
As he lumbers, sleep-deprived, around south central Peru this week, Corwin is likely meet the descendants of an ancient people who were in awe of the creature's mystical powers. Some worshipped this bear as a grand mediator. Because it inhabits a huge range of elevations — migrating as it does, up and down the mountain slopes in search of fruits and bromeliads to eat — the bear was respected as a go-between of evil and good. It was thought to communicate with the dark forces inhabiting the underworld jungle as well as the light powers of the high peaks.
Corwin knows that it's just a bear, of course. Just a bear that traces its lineage back to the Ice Age. Just a bear on the brink of extinction.
As if its situation in the wild isn't bad enough, some 150 of these animals are thought to be suffering in captivity — in circuses, run-down zoos and remote Andean villages. In the town of Aguas Calientes, nestled under the Inca ruins of Machu Picchu, Corwin plans to join conservationists as they move captive bears to a large, natural enclosure. Having spent their lives thus far in squalid pens that pass as "zoos," these bears are habituated to humans and can't survive in the wild. So new enclosures are the next best thing, for them: places where they can roam in natural settings but still be cared for.
There are other captives in the area, and Corwin is setting out to find them and help stop the ursine misery. So now it's time to gulp down the last frothy drop of pisco and sleep fast — spectacled bears don't hibernate, so why should we?
We've got to an early morning flight to catch, Lima-to-Cusco, on Aero Continente.
Next story: Corwin in Cusco.
