This is the substantial story behind the hairless bear that often pass on online and pops up on newsfeeds . You might have visualise its image accompanied by sensory and shoddy headlines , including the absurd notion that it ’s a “ new species ” thriving in the ruination of Chernobyl .
But the truth is far less orphic and far more tragic : this is a spectacled bear , a vulnerable and solitary species , likely struggling to cope with the abnormal precondition of life in captivity .
What does a hairless bear look like?
The story of the hairless bear first made headlines in 2009 . A fistful of media electrical outlet reported that three distaff spectacled bears ( Tremarctos ornatus ) at Leipzig Zoo in Germany were all suffering from varying degrees of baldness .
The worst affected was a pathetic soul identify Dolores who had lost much all of her once - thick shaggy-coated coating except for a sparse tuft on her head and upper back .
What happened to the hairless bear?
Animal wellbeing experts speculated whether it had something to do with the condition of being in captivity . With further investigation , it was break that several other bear being held at European zoos were suffer from a alike complaint .
" I propose that eating and clime can both be a factor because they are tropic animals that we have relocate to our climates , " Gerard Baars , director of the International Bear Foundation , told theBBC World Servicein 2009 .
" The bear should be kept indoors and they should make an imitation of a tropical climate with live temperature , humidness , straw , and bedding on the floor . We in zoological garden are not very unspoilt at imitating natural seasonality , " he added .
Speaking to IFLScience , Leipzig Zoo confirm that Dolores died in March 2011 . They remark that the fundamental causal agent of her hair’s-breadth loss was never officially identified , comment : " Up to now , there was no breakthrough which could explain this phenomenon . "
Spectacled bear
The species , also known as the South American bear or the Andean short - faced bear , is the footing of the beloved children ’s characterPaddington Bear . They are native to a thin strip of the Andes Mountains that runs down South America through parts of Venezuela , Colombia , Ecuador , Peru , Bolivia , and Argentina .
In their natural home ground , they look amyriad of threatsto their existence , namely poach and habitat loss , and are conceive vulnerable to extinction by the IUCN Red List [ PDF ] . To aid their survival , many zoos have taken in member of the coinage , take aim to back up preservation efforts and meliorate their chances of recuperation .
Bears in captivity
However , all bear species are known to experiencesignificant stress in captivity . These highly reasoning animals demand huge territories to drift , which many menagerie can not accommodate . Stressed by their limited surroundings , jailed bears will often resort to abnormal behavior , such as repetitive pacing around their inclosure or swaying from side to side .
Crucially , spectacled bear are lonely animals that only make out into contact with others during mating time of year . Yet in immurement , they are often detain together in divvy up enclosures – an abnormal arrangement that can lead to chronic strain and hormonal imbalances .
Apeer - reviewed studyby San Diego Zoo release in 2019 argued that the alopecia ( hair loss ) see in captive Andean bears is a “ diagnostic reception to the long‐term societal housing ” . They found that the condition primarily bear upon female of the species and is astonishingly common among captive spectacled bears . In North American zoos , almost a third of the females they get across were suffer from some form of tomentum personnel casualty .
“ Even though not all socially put up females were affected by the syndrome , the only feature shared by all affected bears is that they were all females , socially housed with conspecific . We therefore hypothesize that the alopecia syndrome in Andean bears may be only the most obvious symptom of endocrine abnormalities or autoimmune responses triggered by the long‐term social housing of bear that would not otherwise inhabit in group , ” the discipline reads .
The solution , the investigator said , is that female Andean bears should only be housed with other adult if and when females actively opt to cohabitate with others , respect their natural angle of dip for lonesome bread and butter .
The issues of continue animals in captivity are equilibrise with the demand to preserve species that are peril in the natural world ( too often through human actions ) . Dolores the hairless bear is a stark reminder that sometimes those crusade , however well - intentioned , get at a huge cost to the individual beast themselves .
