All language subtitles for Spectacled Bears Shadows of the Forest BBC Natural World 2008 720p HDTV MVGroup EN Sub_Subtitles01.ENG

ROLLING THUNDER

In the mist of the Andean
cloud forest in South America,

there's a shy, mysterious beast.

It's one of the largest animals in
these forests, yet it's so elusive

that until recently
very little was known about it.

RUSTLING

It's a spectacled bear.

Though glimpses of it
in the wild are rare,

it's far more familiar
from a children's book.

In 1958, a bear called
Paddington

from deepest, darkest Peru

entered the lives of children
across the world

through the books of Michael Bond.

There's one bear in South America -

the spectacled -
so Paddington must be one,

and in the book at least,
he eats marmalade.

But to biologists, the real book of
its life is only now being written.

And as its forest home
is disappearing fast,

we're racing to understand the real
bear to stop it becoming extinct.

But what they have found out
about this enigmatic bear

could put it
into even greater danger.

New, staggering revelations
are now coming to light.

The Andes run the length
of South America,

and it's up in the central
and northern Andes,

close to the equator,
that the bears live.

Skirting the mountain peaks
are thick, dense cloud forests,

which rise up
to about 4,500 metres.

Being both high and on the equator,
this is called the "high tropics",

rich in wildlife.

COOING

CHIRPING

This damp air creates
perfect growing conditions.

The branches of trees are
festooned with flowering plants.

The same bromeliads that attract
hummingbirds also attract bears.

Though both sexes of bear climb
trees, the female bears,

weighing a third less
than the males, are able to reach

the more inaccessible plants
on the outer branches.

Spectacled bears love bromeliads,

and with their extraordinary sense
of smell, find them up in trees.

WHINING

What they can smell
is the plant's sugar-rich core.

The bears are called "spectacled"

because of the markings
around their eyes.

Actually,
their sight isn't very good.

They rely much more
on their sense of smell.

The spectacled bear is the most
threatened of all the bears.

It's the last member of a family
of bears called "tremarctine",

or "short-faced" bear.

Thousands of years ago, the other
short-faced bears became extinct,

including a giant one that
weighed more than a ton.

Above the cloud forest,
it's too cold for trees to grow.

The land is carpeted

with vast swathes of tall grasses,
called "Paramo".

Puyas are ground bromeliads that
grow out here on the Paramo

and can stand
over three metres high.

The bears are lured out of
the cloud forest

to the sweet
epicentres of the puyas.

Clearly this bear has a sweet tooth!

Perhaps this is the basis for
Paddington's love of marmalade.

The bears are extremely wary,
and live high in the mountains,

so getting any information
on them has always been hard,

but what scientists were sure about

was that almost all their diet
was plants.

Over the last few years,

with cloud forests being cleared
at an alarming rate,

scientists have woken up
to their plight.

In Ecuador, biologist Armando
Castellanos has devoted 12 years

to finding out more about them.

Although Armando has studied
many animals in the cloud forest,

his greatest passion has
always been for the bears.

THUNDER

He is radio-collaring a wild bear
that has been trapped and sedated.

This is a large male bear. He also
has collars on other animals,

to build up a picture of where the
bears are and what they're doing.

He hopes to find out, crucially,

just how much ground
the bears cover.

Armando isn't the only scientist
in the Andes

who's become
obsessed by spectacled bears.

Further south, on the dry,
rugged foothills of Peru,

spectacled bears
are at the very edge of their range.

This is where biologist Rob
Williams works with the bears

on a small reserve called Chaparri.

Rob came out here from England

as a bird-watching tour guide,
married a Peruvian girl,

and settled here to establish
a community-owned reserve

with his new father-in-law.

I first heard about spectacled
bears, I guess, as a child.

I don't remember the exact moment.

Everyone knows Paddington
came from Peru.

It was a mythical animal
of the Andes

that no-one really saw
or knew anything about.

I came as an ornithologist,
interested in birds,

but I wanted to see a puma
and a spectacled bear,

because these are
the big, exciting animals.

Though there were rumours of
bears living in the Chaparri area,

no-one, including Rob, knew for sure
whether they were still there.

It was only when I started coming
down here in about 1999,

just after the peace agreement
between Peru and Ecuador,

that it became possible
and I met people saying,

"There are still
spectacled bears in an area."

With the local people here,
and some other biologists,

we started to get interested in them,
thinking how are they still doing.

It's amazing they're still here.

But in such a vast landscape
and with limited resources,

how could Rob ever
be able to find one,

let alone learn anything
about them?

Remote cameras,
triggered by an infra-red beam,

were a possible answer.

Unlike people, they neither smell
nor move,

and can remain unflinching,
night and day, for weeks at a time.

The dry riverbeds on the reserve

always have a few remaining pools
of water,

and Rob knew that if the bears
were there at all,

they would come
to drink sooner or later.

Week after week, Rob and his team

visited each camera trap
in the mountains,

returning to base with the crucial
evidence on the memory cards.

What they found
exceeded all expectations.

Seeing the first photo on the
camera was really exciting, you know.

We didn't know how well it would work
or how many photos we'd get.

We got a nice photo of one in a pool

with its face coming right up
out of the water, looking at us.

We had the whole facial pattern -
it was exciting.

We realised, "We can do this

"and we can use this
to study these bears."

Gradually we built up a picture

and we know now
that there are nine or ten bears

using this valley
on a regular basis.

Probably five or six
in it at any one time.

The study continues, but it's slow.

So Rob also values
the information he's getting

from a group of rescued bears

which live in an enclosure
in the reserve.

These bears have been rescued
from captivity,

illegally held in circuses,
zoos, factories,

saw mills,
private people's houses.

They have a better life here.
We can learn stuff from them.

But most importantly, the locals
can come here and see the bears

and it creates
a local source of respect.

The camera traps have shown us
that the bears' behaviour

is quite different
from what was believed.

People believed they were nocturnal.
It's published in several reports.

But through the camera-trapping,

we've found there's no night-time
activity at all.

He's also witnessed something else
which is quite extraordinary -

the bears making beds in the trees.

Biologists haven't yet found a den,

but mothers and their cubs

have been observed to remain
together for over a year.

Two cubs is the norm.

Not much more is known
about their upbringing.

WHINING

As Rob gets to know
spectacled bears better,

he's starting to understand

how they survive here
at the very edge of their range.

In this habitat,
especially in the dry forests,

they're trapped in the edge
of their possible limit of survival.

You know, this is an extreme
environment for them.

Their diet was thoroughly
studied here 40 years ago.

Scientists decided that these bears
were mainly vegetarian,

with protein from termites
and beetles

making up a scant 2% of their meals.

Some Andean people, particularly
those that keep livestock,

believe that bears
are even predatory,

but this is something that
scientists are quick to dismiss.

In my years here and in other
countries, I've heard many reports

of amazing things
from otherwise credible witnesses.

The in-built beliefs and hatreds
towards predators

in Andean communities

can often lead people to tell you
things they believe they have seen.

There's a man here who's told me
he's seen a peregrine

cut the heads off
four chickens with its wings.

It's obviously rubbish. He's
otherwise a very reliable observer.

Rob thinks that scientists
must stick to what they see.

Here in Peru, even at the peak
of the dry season,

which lasts for three
or four months of the year,

when there's absolutely no fruit,
no insects, no nothing,

then the bears at Chaparri
eat nothing more than bark.

Their teeth can rip deep into
the trunk of leafless pasallo trees,

where sugars are stored,
and this is enough,

amazingly,
for the bears to survive.

Interestingly, the bears seem

to have a sixth sense for when
and where to find fruiting trees.

When these berries appear
much lower down the mountain,

the bears are soon onto them.
Is it their sense of smell,

or is information being passed
down from mother to cub?

Rob knows that bears quickly move
into his area when fruits appear.

However, he has no idea
how much ground

these same bears are also using
outside the reserve.

Back in Ecuador, this is exactly
what Armando is trying to find out.

Working at this altitude
for weeks at a time is hard.

A horse is the only way
to get around up here.

The horses on this ranch
at Yanahurco are direct descendents

of ones brought from Spain
by the conquistadores,

and 500 years of altitude have
given them the lungs for the job.

It's soon clear
Armando will need stamina too.

In this terrain,
it's hard to pick up the signal

from the radio-collared bear.

At this high spot,
he ought to get a good signal.

He needs line of sight to pinpoint
the transmission from the collars,

and in this terrain,
that can be hard.

STATIC

It seems that his big male bear has
moved over 15 kilometres in one day,

and is now heading north west
from the Paramo to denser terrain.

But these deep valleys don't just
make the signal difficult to find -

they slow him right down.

Armando realises he needs some
way of getting above it all.

He gets the help of local
flying enthusiast Jorge Anhalzer.

Armando will take his receiver
with him

and be able to cover
much more ground.

Jorge does a final engine check.
They'll be flying over terrain

where an emergency landing
will be impossible.

THEY SPEAK IN SPANISH

ENGINE STARTS

Radio tracking from the air

allows Armando to build up a picture

of where
his collared bears are moving.

After several flights
over a period of months,

he is able to map the signals.

He can see the entire range

that the male bear has covered
over that time.

TRACKER BEEPS

It is 16,000 hectares.

That's half the size
of the Isle of Wight.

It's bigger than
anyone had imagined.

He's also discovered that,
within the same area,

there are also two females.

If a bear needs
so much land to survive,

an encroachment on its territory
puts it under enormous pressure.

People are pushing further
and further into remote areas,

often clearing areas
of once pristine cloud forest

to graze their cattle.

Every hillside that is cleared

denies the bear a few trees
dripping in bromeliads

or a patch of sugar-rich puyas.

LOWING

The cattle are also being taken
right up onto the high Paramo.

Scientists like Armando

are eager to find out how the bears
are coping with these changes.

Back on the ground,

Armando returns to the spot where
he obtained the most recent signal.

TRACKER BEEPS

The signal is very strong.

The frequency tells him
it's the big male bear.

It must be close.
But a condor is circling.

Though they're quite common here,
to see them in flight like this

generally indicates
that there's a carcass around.

Might his bear be dead?

But suddenly, the bear's signal
strengthens

and Armando gets a sighting.

There she is. Over there.

It's alive and well.

Armando tries to see
where the bear is heading.

It seems to be following a scent.

A dead cow.

And the bear seems very interested.

To Armando's amazement,
the bear starts

to gorge on the belly of the cow.

It's one more observation that has
helped turn everything that we knew

about spectacled bears on its head.

Forget beetles and termites.

This bear clearly has a taste
for raw steak, too.

This extraordinary sighting
encourages Armando

to continue his trek
across the Paramo.

Four days later,
another intriguing observation -

a long trail through the grass.

The ground has been trodden down.

It seems that something big
has been dragged down the hill.

And not 50 nor 100,
but 200 metres down the hill.

Armando follows the trail down.

At the end of it is another carcass.

It's another dead cow.

There are tooth marks of bear,
and claw marks, too.

There are well-known
cattle-killers up here - pumas.

But it's still surprising to find
a spectacled bear scavenging

on one of their kills.

BIRD CALLS

Perhaps the bears are being
pushed into scavenging meat

because their habitat
is being broken up.

It's difficult for Armando to assess
what bears normally do in the wild.

To study the bears' natural diet,
Armando has started visiting

a much more pristine,
unspoilt part of Ecuador.

It's a place so remote, it takes
days from Quito in a Land Rover,

and then more days on horseback.

A dangerous journey along
treacherously steep ridges

to the wild, pristine foothills
of Mount Sangay.

And no-one comes here
for a very good reason.

VOLCANO ROARS

Every now and then,
quite randomly, it erupts.

The locals won't come
within miles of here.

Armando knows what he's looking for.

This is dense, pristine cloud forest
and Armando can recognise

the trail left by spectacled bears
as they move through it.

After many hours of searching,
he finds a vital clue...

..the faeces, or scats, of a bear...

..and in it, hairs.

Armando is sure that these hairs
belong to the mountain tapir.

Mountain tapirs are indigenous
to the cloud forests of the Andes.

They're about the size of donkeys,
but because they are good to eat,

have been hunted out of
most of their former range.

But at Mount Sangay, where
there are absolutely no people,

the tapirs are abundant.

For Armando, it's a revelation

that spectacled bears have probably
always scavenged on carcasses,

on indigenous creatures
such as mountain tapir,

which were here long before cattle.

But this revelation
also makes him reconsider

a lot of other assumptions
he's held about spectacled bears.

Like Rob Williams in Peru,

Armando has been ignoring the local
campesinos' rather wild claims

that bears were attacking
live cattle.

He puts out the word
that he would like to hear

from anyone
making these kinds of claims.

Senora?

Se acuerda? Como esta?

Se acuerda de lo de...?
A woman responds.

She lives in a region of Ecuador
called Cosanga.

She recounts to Armando
something extraordinary

she saw down by the river.

THEY SPEAK IN SPANISH

The tapir and bear
escaped when...they see her.

If he had met this lady
before he had been to Sangay,

he would have dismissed
her assumption

that the bear was
actually attacking the tapir.

But knowing now that some bears
have a taste for raw meat,

he can't help but wonder whether
there's more to this bear

than scientists have ever believed.

Less than 30 kilometres away, but
still in the same region, Cosanga,

a campesino is keen to take Armando

up the hill to the clearings in
the forest made for the cattle.

Here, the campesino
pulls out a photograph - of a cow.

The cow has been fatally wounded.

The campesino claims
it was attacked by a bear.

Two attacks, allegedly by bears,
only 30 kilometres apart.

That's within the home range
of one hungry male bear.

Claw marks on a tree
prove that there are bears here.

THUNDER RUMBLES

Could it be that spectacled bears,
like grizzly bears,

are attacking
and killing large mammals?

If true, this would be shocking
news for the scientific community.

And there are scientists,

like Rob Williams in Peru,

who don't believe
the evidence stacks up.

The spectacled bear is a small bear.

The biggest ones that are
reported are about 120, 130 kilos.

A cow weighs about four times
what a spectacled bear weighs -

that's a huge difference.

There are very few predators in
the world that take out prey alone

that are that much bigger than them.

They believe what they're telling
you, but when you actually say,

"Whose cow has been killed?"

"It's the neighbour
of my cousin's friend."

And, you know, I want to see
someone... Why has no-one proven it?

No-one's ever shown us a dead cow

and we've got there in time and
said, "Yes, a bear killed this cow."

But in a remote part of Ecuador,

that's exactly
what people are saying.

There's a remote community
at a place called Oyacachi.

Isaac Goldstein
is a Venezuelan biologist

following the same leads
as Armando.

Isaac has been investigating claims
about bear attacks on cattle

across the bears' range
in Venezuela and Bolivia,

as well as here in Ecuador.

Isaac listens carefully to what
the people at Oyacachi have to say.

HE SPEAKS IN SPANISH

They've told these stories often,
but few people have believed them.

The Ministry of Environment

didn't believe
that the bear was attacking a cow.

The only known conflict
with the bears

is that they are spotted
in fields of maize.

Maize is increasingly grown
in forest clearings,

and looks like the tall puya
that the bears love to eat anyway.

So people and bears
are in conflict already.

If people are also talking
about bears attacking cattle,

what hope is there of local people
caring for this bear?

Denis Torres works

for a conservation organisation
called Andigena,

and thinks that local people

are being swayed
by a long-held mistrust of bears.

The campesino believe the
spectacled bear is a real predator,

because they have a lot
of misconception, maybe.

It's the heritage
for the Spanish people,

when they are coming
to South America,

they have a long history of conflict

with brown bears in Spain
or in Europe.

But scientists are going to have
to get to the truth - and fast -

because local people are already
taking the law into their own hands.

Hunting is thought to be a major
cause of population reduction.

Nearly 200 bears are shot each year,

even though
they're an endangered species.

The bear's reputation
as a crop raider is bad enough.

Andigena don't want its image
to be tarnished any further.

They make no mention of the stories
of bears hunting down cattle.

HE SPEAKS SPANISH

Torres distributes
attractive brochures

to farmers in remote communities

to help dispel any
negative attitudes towards the bear.

The farmer
living here in this area

has seen constantly one
spectacled bear close to his farm.

And he told me,

"I don't have any problem
related with cattle predation.

"In fact, the spectacled bear
is very close to my home,

"but I don't have
any problem with the bear.

"Sometimes the bear is eating
the corn in my crops,

"but I don't feel afraid
about the bear

"or any bad image
about the bear."

But this approach is causing
a rift with biologists.

I get very mad at them,

because they are preaching
what they would like to happen

in the world,
but that's not what is happening.

Como esta? Mucho gusto.

If we go to a settlement
that is having problems

and we say to the cattle owners,
"You have no problems,"

we will lose all the credibility

because we will be liars.

They know what they are seeing.

They are experts on their cattle.

The campesino believe the bear is
the main reason for the cattle loss.

I am not very sure about that.

I think that the puma is the main
animal provoking the cattle death.

At Oyacachi, Isaac Goldstein
is increasingly convinced

that it's not a puma

but a bear that's attacking
and killing their cattle.

A calf has been found on the Paramo,
motherless and injured.

OK, we can see here clearly
the claw marks of the attack.

Very superficial, however.

This is the only profound wound.

We don't see anything here

in the base of the skull or the
throat, so it is not a puma attack.

And the mother of this calf
is missing,

so we should look for her
and see and confirm the bear attack.

We will look for the remains of the
mother and confirm the bear attack.

The owner of these cattle,
called Melchor,

continues alone in the search
for his missing cow.

Following hoof marks
and disturbed vegetation,

he enters the cloud forest.

He soon identifies an area
on the ground within the forest

where there has been
a huge struggle.

The ground has been kicked up
and there are traces of hairs.

He found a dead cow -

one of his cows dead -
and other signs of struggle.

He followed the signs of dragging...

..and then at the end of the signs
he found the dead cow.

From what remains it's hard to tell

whether this was the mother
of the wounded calf,

but Melchor is sure
that it has been attacked by a bear.

Now, these signs of dragging

were exactly what Armando saw
on the Paramo.

Perhaps that wasn't
a puma attack after all.

Back at Oyacachi,

Isaac believes he's now building up
the profile of a bear attack -

a series of distinctive clues.

He follow other trails
and at the end of one of those

he found a big ground nest

with scats and claw marks on trees.

These claw marks tend to appear
on trees

less than 100 metres
from where a bear has fed.

Armando saw them at Cosanga.

Is this where little Paddington
sharpened his marmalade spoon

into a butcher's knife?

There's even more
emphatic evidence to come.

He's telling me that he have
had previous attack on his cattle,

and showing me a picture,

and here you can see the typical
signs where the bears attack cattle.

Isaac is now in no doubt.

There is a totally different
behaviour between a puma kill

and a spectacled bear kill.

The puma kill, you see
all the evidence in the throat.

That's the kill of a puma.

There's no way, no way, you can
mistake one kill from the other.

There is no way.

And these are the same wounds
that Armando saw

in the photos at Cosanga.

It's like solving
a criminal case with humans.

You don't have to see
the guy shooting...

at the person. You solve
the problem with the evidence.

But down in Peru,
Rob Williams remains cautious.

In Chaparri,
he has absolutely no evidence

that bears kill other animals, so he
prefers to understate the claims.

It is interesting, these new
studies and the new evidence -

it is showing us new aspects of
this animal we knew so little about.

We're learning that
it is more of an opportunist,

it's less vegetarian
than we originally thought.

Once upon a time, scientists
just wanted to find out

enough about this bear
to save it from extinction.

Now they cannot agree
on the next step.

We need to be careful with what we do
with any information that comes out

about predation with this bear.

We've got to report it. You've got
to be, as a scientist, factual.

But we've got to put it into context

that it may happen in some areas, but
in other areas it isn't happening,

and it may be, at worst, a few
individual bears that learn this.

In the Andes, for many years,

people have said
they're evil, predatory animals.

We need to be sure
that they really are predatory

and think about solutions
to the problem,

not just say "they're predatory" and
create a worse press for the bear.

Because in the main,
and in many areas like this,

they are not taking cattle.

Isaac agrees that it might not
be a problem everywhere,

but he thinks it's time to
face up to what's going on.

We cannot say that it is
a widespread behaviour,

and that in all localities
all bears attack cattle.

But in certain localities,
certain bears become a problem,

and we have to deal
with that problem.

The problem is how you...

keep the cattle away from the bears
and the bears away from the cattle.

That's the main problem.

One solution might be
to bring llamas

and guanacos
back to the northern Andes.

Unlike cattle,
they're native to the Andes

and have shared the mountains
with bears for millennia.

They might be better than cows

at scrambling off steep slopes
when chased by a bear.

Another solution to the conflict

might be to manage
the cattle better -

fence them in to the lower slopes

or even pay out compensation money
when cows are lost.

It's unfortunate that the only
reason we are having problems

is because we've encroached
on the bears' world.

The more we learn about
the spectacled bear,

the more intriguing
we find them to be.

They're surviving by changing
their behaviour

as we replace
their forest foods with cows.

They're doing their level best
to hang on.

Are we doing our best to help them?

It'll be a very sad world if we
can't live with spectacled bears,

with the 6,000,
10,000 spectacled bears -

if we can't find a space for them
in six Andean countries.

The spectacled bear is
the big terrestrial animal

in many of these habitats.

If we can't protect that,
we'll lose the next one down,

then we'll lose the next one down,

and we'll end up with a poorer,
simpler ecosystem.

Hopefully,
with increasing knowledge will come

a better understanding of how
we might take better care of this...

..the original Paddington Bear.