PREVIEW

Conservationists in Bolivia have discovered 60 ‘Paddington’ bears in remote areas of Bolivia. Chester Zoo's Andean Carnivore Conservation Program has been deploying trap cameras in the deeply forested regions of the Tarija department since 2017. Last year, these cameras captured footage of numerous bears frolicking and wandering amidst the trees, signaling a thriving spectacled bear community. The spectacled bear is native to South America but is more famous in the U.K. as the inspiration behind the beloved cartoon bear Paddington. He was said to be from ‘deepest darkest Peru’ but abandoned at the London station that shares his name. The Andean Carnivore Conservation Program, highlights the species' vulnerable status, citing habitat loss, retaliatory hunting, and climate change as pressing concerns. Without intervention, nearly 30% of the bear population could be lost by 2030. These findings offer a ray of hope for the spectacled bear, which ranges throughout the subtropical Andes all the way from Bolivia in the south to Venezuela in the north including, of course, parts of Peru.