The spectacled bear is listed as “Vulnerable” on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species and has a high risk of going extinct in the next 30 years.
The spectacled bear is listed as “Vulnerable” on the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN)’s Red List of Threatened Species due to habitat loss and fragmentation, illegal hunting, and human-bear conflict, and has a high risk of going extinct in the next 30 years.
Human development and encroachment, from agriculture to new settlements, into previously inaccessible South American forests has significantly impacted the bear’s numbers throughout its range. Sadly, habitat loss and fragmentation is bringing bears and humans into greater proximity, leading to increased human-bear-conflict. This increase in conflict results in reduced tolerance and escalated bear kills. Thus, even where a habitat patch is of sufficient size to maintain a bear population, human-caused mortality is likely to reduce bear density.
• Image | © Jin Kemoole, Some Rights Reserved, (CC BY 2.0)
• Sources | (LaFee, 2009; Velez-Liendo & García-Rangel, 2017; Wikimedia Foundation, 2018)
