SDZ_20080603_1_Houdini_Trill4Roar, Rumble and Snort
By Dani Dodge

There are a lot of bears at the San Diego Zoo: polar, Manchurian brown, grizzly, sun and sloth. There’s the beloved panda that made big news this month when Bai Yun gave birth to her fifth cub. And then, near the top of Center Street, is one of my favorites, the Andean bear.
The two Andean bears, Houdini and Tommy, have unusual markings that make them look as though they are wearing glasses, so many call them spectacled bears. The Andean Bear doesn’t make sounds like I would expect a bear to make. Instead, they squeal, grunt and chirp in bright trills, like a bird.
Despite their endearing qualities, this South American bear is in trouble. The uninhabited areas it used to roam are shrinking as people push into the continent’s wild areas. One hundred years ago, the species ranged from the beaches to the deserts to the Andes. Now, the 20,000 or so remaining (they are notoriously difficult to count) mainly inhabit the cloud forests of Peru and Bolivia: difficult, rocky, forested terrain often engulfed in misty clouds.
“One of the reasons it is important to study these bears is their population is declining fairly dramatically,” said Russ Van Horn, a senior researcher at the San Diego Zoo’s Institute for Conservation Research. “Habitat loss is estimated at 2 to 4 percent per year. In a few decades, these bears are in serious trouble.
“We are trying to turn things around before we have the same situation as the giant panda.”
The population of the giant panda is estimated to be about 1,600.
Research projects to help save the Andean bear could get a boost this year from Celebration for the Critters, San Diego’s biggest food and beverage tasting event with more than 150 restaurants, wineries and breweries participating. The after-hours blowout — complete with live music and dancing — helps to fund conservation projects being conducted by scientists at the Institute for Conservation Research.
Latin American projects are being highlighted this year in honor of the Critter Carnival theme: one that provides Andean condors for release in South America, another that is finding a way to protect endangered palms and develop sustainable palm harvest guidelines, and the Andean bear conservation research.
The goal of the Andean bear project is to study the elusive bear’s eating, mating and use of space, to document the impact of a highway being constructed through its habitat and to conduct the first study on the parasites affecting the species in the wild.
The San Diego Zoo’s Institute for Conservation Research is collaborating on the project with researchers from the Andes, the Spectacled Bear Conservation Society, and the Botanical Research Institute of Texas. The work began in 2007. Van Horn spends about half of his year in South America and the other half in San Diego. The scientists hope to engage Peruvian students in the project, which is just beginning.
Van Horn said funds from Celebration for the Critters could help train Peruvians to do conservation work and allow researchers to purchase motion sensor cameras to capture “mug shots” of the bears. Andean bears each have distinctive markings. The photos, along with genetic information gathered from the bears’ feces, would help the researchers determine the range, number and habits of the bears.
In 2007, there were 74 Andean bears at 38 zoos in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.
Houdini and Tommy both came from other zoos, not the Andes. Houdini, a female, and Tommy, a male, have been together at the San Diego Zoo about 20 years. They’ve had cubs, but are too old now for any more. If you watch them long enough in their exhibit, you will see them have spats and make up. They will chat in that high-pitched trill and growl. They will become one of your favorites too.