are a barrier for bear movements and population connectivity. Integrate hydrological criteria at a landscape scale will benefit bears and other biotic communities that associate with aquatic environments, including humans. Linking bear habitat conservation and water management can be effective for the development of conservation strategies that benefit all. In places where it is almost impossible to establish new protected areas due mainly to the fact that many people already live in the area, the creation of natural corridors is possibly the best tool for the conservation of species with migratory patterns such as the endangered Andean bear. Spectacled bear in Ecuador Spectacled bears in Ecuador live in approximately of paramo and cloud forest habitats. About one-third of this area is part of the National System of Protected Areas and the remaining 67% is located on unprotected, undeveloped areas that have suffered a substantial reduction of approximately 40% from its original distribution. Due to this land-use conversion to agricultural uses, important amounts of the spectacled bear habitat have been lost, which has fragmented their territory and isolated populations to small areas that might result in extirpations in the long term. Therefore, the distribution of the species in the country is set in numerous habitat patches, from which many are small. In popular culture The children's character Paddington Bear is a spectacled bear, famously from "darkest Peru". In the documentary Paddington Bear: The Early Years, Stephen Fry encounters a spectacled bear called Yogi, which was kept in a small cage by Andean villagers. Fry bartered with the villagers to have the bear released, and it was taken to an enclosure in Machu Picchu. Fry's interest in the bears led to the follow-up documentary, Stephen Fry and the Spectacled Bears, and he also wrote and published his experiences in Rescuing the Spectacled Bear: A Peruvian Diary. In the BBC television programme Serious Andes, a team of eight teenagers built a pre-release enclosure for two spectacled bears before returning them to the wild. The BBC documentary Spectacled Bears: Shadows of the Forest looked at conservation issues and conflicts with farming communities. See also Bear References External links Spectacled Bear Conservation Don Oso Program by Fundación Cordillera Tropical International Association for Bear Research and Management Fundación Oso Andino National System of Protected Areas in Ecuador Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund Bears Bear, spectacled Extant Late Pleistocene first appearances Mammals described in 1825 Taxa named by