The pooping glasses of Peru help climb the cloud forest – and this biologist helps the bears

In the middle of the spooky cloud forest of Peru, where knotty trunks are covered with ferns and moss and tree frogs spawn in the pools between bromelia leaves, she saw her first spectacle bear. « There was a deep valley between us. Mist patches moved up and down, the bear appeared and disappeared. Very magical, as if he was walking through the clouds. » The Peruvian biologist and conservationist Ruthmery Pillco Huarcaya could not have wished for a better gift on her thirtieth birthday, now three years ago.

She had just been hired as a spectacle bear researcher at Conservación Amazónica, a non-profit organization in the mist forests of the Manú National Park in the south of Peru, but no one could tell her where the glasses were. « If I asked people in the neighborhood, they joked for the cows in the grasslands above the forest: also large and black. Brilitars live solitary and no one knows exactly how much there are. To be able to protect them, I first had to examine them. »

Pillco Huarcaya concentrated on their traces. An indispensable research assistant turned out to be her dog Ukuku, which means ‘bear’ in quechua language. « In the US they asked 10,000 dollars for a trained dog. Then I went to the shelter in Cuzco and there I found a clever dog, small but cool, a little whippet-like. I succeeded but I succeeded in training her with the help of online movies. Then we have to find a hurt of a hurt in the hinges of brilons in the hinges of brilons in the hinges of a hurt in the hinges of brilons in the hinges in the poning in the poning in the pharmacy pharp. Being can catch and anesthetize to give a collar with a transmitter. « 

The spectacle bear (Tremarctos Ornatusliterally ‘decorated bear’) is the last seaside species from the genus of the shortcut bears and the only living beer species of South America. Their diet is 80 to 90 percent vegetable with, among others, fruit, palm leaves and bromelias. They move through high areas, between the mist forests about 3,000 meters and even higher grassland plateaus, pins. « In those areas there are almost no tapirs and monkeys, making the bears the most important seed spreaders. These are the gardeners of the Nevelwoud. » In addition to sowing and fertilizing, the glasses are also skilled in pruning. « They climb a lot in trees and break down branches there to build nests, as a resting place. That creates holes in the foliage, so that the light can reach the bush layer again and new seedlings get a chance. »

My grandmother told about large fields full of snow and ice on which they camped

Pillco Huarcaya grew up in a mountain village near Cuzco and was the first of her family to study. « My parents are farmers and hoped that I would become a doctor. Their rigid in biology was that I would disappear from the radar for weeks and come home in smelly clothes. That wriggel came out completely, » notes Pillco Huarcaya dryly.

After completing her Master in Plant and Fungal Sciences at Queen Mary University of London and Kew Gardens, she worked as an IUCN Team Specialist in Costa Rica, until she had the opportunity to return to Peru for Brilagen Research- which is now also her PHD project. “This was what I wanted for a long time so I never doubted. As a child I was fascinated after seeing Brother Beara Disney film about the bond between Grizzly bears and the original inhabitants of Alaska. I realized again that we also have bears in our country. « 

Glasses are deeply intertwined with the native quechua cultures of the Andes. During the annual Qoylur Rit’i-‘Festival of the Snowster’-the mythical Ukukus, half-beer half-person, are important figures. Men from all areas around Cuzco transform into Ukukus with long robes and black, spectacle -like masks. For sunrise, they climb a glacier at more than 5,000 meters to each with a block of ice on the back – holy water as a symbol for the importance of the glacier – to their villages.

Only: the holy ice of the glaciers is disappearing due to climate change. Pillco Huarcaya: “My grandmother was an adventurous woman. To escape from her village, she went into the high mountains as a cook with the Ukukus. She told about large fields full of snow and ice on which they camped, but when I herself two years ago with an expedition of National Geographic Going to a weather station on the same mountain, there was only snow on the top. « 

And there is more to it. The Meso-American nebulus forests have been hit by global warming and drying out and ‘climbing’ against the mountains, looking for the right moist climate. According to Mexican scientists who about that in March Science published, this has been done since 1979 with an average speed of 1.8 to 2.7 meters per year. But the forest cannot keep track of the mist, which means that the mist forests are in danger of losing their important function as ‘sponge’, taking water from the Hoge Andes and returning to the lowland rain forest via water flows. « When I started my research I often came back soaked, now I come across more and more dried -up mosses, when you touch it with your fingers it is just paper. »

I feel privileged that I come from a culture where nature and culture are not opposite concepts

The rising mist forests also collide against grasslands. For the flora of the Nevelwoud it is a difficult biotope to take, with hot days and cold nights. Glasses play a crucial role in this, because of the seeds they are calling out. « The bears move between different heights. The seeds that they spread in addition germinate better because they have gone through their digestive system. And the bed of manure in which they give lands the plant a good start. » So, thanks to their own migration pattern, spectacles also help the forest with migrating. While the Ukukus have more and more difficulty to remove the holy water from the mountain top, the real spectacles bring the mist forest further upstairs.

To help the glasses, Pillco Huarcaya and her team have now also grown and planted more than 400,000 indigenous trees. « But I don’t want to make it too good. We will lose animal species due to climate change anyway. » With logging and grazing, the farmers also push the forest border down again in some places.

And there are farmers who hate glasses and even kill because they sometimes grab a cow. But Pillco Huarcaya is hopeful in that area: “There are also farmers who plants some extra corn for the bear, because they acknowledge that the bears were here earlier than they are. I am encouraged. The corn for the bears is a form of lease. And there is the belief that animals protect you if you give them something. I want to do all the oppings with nature and culture and I want to be careful and I want to be concerned with the power of culture and I do not want to be a culture and culture and I am privileged with nature and culture and I do not care about nature and culture and I am concerned about nature and culture and I am concerned with the power and culture with nature and culture and I am concerned about nature and culture and I am concerned about nature and culture with the culture and culture and that I am concerned about nature and culture and that nature and culture are with nature and culture and I am concerned about nature and culture and that nature and culture are in a culture and culture and that is in a culture and culture and culture. and the quechua communities to make the forests more resilient. « 

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