Capturing Wild Andean Bears

In order to track Andean Bears we must first capture them and fit them with radio collars. We use a non-impact trapping system in order to minimise the stress caused to the bear. We have researched other trapping mechanisms (such as foot lassos) however after several years of trapping bears, we believe that our trapping system is the most suited to the Andean Bear.

Capturing bears is a slow and difficult process and we are constantly looking for ways to improve our trapping systems. In the future we hope to use dogs to track bears by scent through the forest. Once our dogs find a bear we can then tranquillise them using dart guns. This would hopefully result in a much higher capture rate with minimal stress caused to the bear. We are in the process of training dogs for this purpose and hope to be able to use them as soon as they are ready.

We have several 'Iznachi' traps (designed by Armando Castellanos) along the paths that the bears use, and sometimes in cornfields that bears enter in search of food. We use cow feet as bait. A radio collar with a motion censor, which has been placed on the cage, is activated when the sliding door of the cage closes. The presence of any signal emitted by the device informs us if an animal has entered the trap. The censor is listened to every hour in the daytime.

Should we receive an active signal from a cage we will hike to the cage location as quickly as possible. We try to have the bear trapped in the cage for as little time as is possible in order to minimize the stress experienced by the bear. Once at the cage we tranquillise the bear, take measurements and genetic samples before fitting it with a radio collar. The bear is then moved away from the cage and left to wake in its own time.

The capture, immobilization and collection of samples are managed and supervised by Dr. Leonardo Arias, a veterinary doctor with extensive experience in the handling of wildlife. Dr. Arias is available in the event of any emergency.