Bubu the Bear!

For my first month in Ecuador, I´ve sure covered a lot of ground...and icing on the cake was meeting Bubu the Bear on Tuesday. So far my work with the Andean Bear Project (AndeanBear.org) has been incredible. I have spent about a week and a half getting to know the volunteers and our bear house in Pucara. I´ve gotten to travel as a translator to the countryside of San Gabriel to try and track a bear killing cows. And most recently I got to see first hand the amount of work and passion that the project puts into rehabilitating and releasing Bubu (the most adorable Spectacled Bear I´ve ever seen). This rehabilitation work is vital in order to try and enhance the low amounts of genetic diversity of the wild populations of Spectacled Bear...just by releasing even one bear we can strengthen their likelyhood of survival for future generations.

We were on the road by 6 am to make the 5+ hour drive out to hacienda Yanahurco to visit Bubu, who has quite a view overlooking a rolling river, hillsides filled with horses and deer, and occasionally Cotopaxi when it comes out of the clouds. I would love a view like that! The trip was rough in Armando´s car, sloshing through rivers, getting out to pile rocks so we wouldn´t bottom out, and crossing our fingers that we didn´t get stuck out in the middle of nowhere. Once we made it, the ability to be that close to a wild bear was incredible...and even though he is still in a cage (hopefully not for much longer!) you can tell that he is ready to be free. I am so glad I was given the opportunity to have met him before he is released and to spend (a slightly rainy) day photographing him in all his muddy glory. Now I´m ready to head back to the bear house with our new volunteers from Germany, USA, Switzerland, and The Netherlands. I can´t wait to get back out there and track some more bears!!!