Through the eyes of the Andean bear: Camera collar insights into the life of a threatened South American Ursid

Abstract

Due to Andean bears' propensity for inhabiting challenging environments and terrain, their wild ecology remains poorly understood, especially when compared to other members of the Ursidae family. In one of the steepest, wettest regions of the Andes, the Kosñipata Valley of southeastern Peru, we attached and retrieved camera-borne collars on three wild free-ranging Andean bears. From just one longer term camera collar deployed on a single individual over a period of 4 months, we observed a variety of rare or previously undocumented natural history observations. These include courtship and mating behaviors, social interactions with conspecifics, novel dietary items of previously unrecorded fruit consumption, cannibalism, potential infanticide, the sole documented case of primate consumption, and evidence of geophagy. The wealth of novel natural history insights gained from just 4 months of camera collar data of this poorly studied species has elucidated numerous avenues warranting further investigation.