Poaching threatens South America's only bear species
CHACHAPOYAS, PERUThe woman in the market stall fills a glass with a reddish liquid, calling out what’s in the brew: white rum, seven types of tree bark, honey, pollen, a snake's head, the huanarpo macho plant, and the key ingredient—the penis bone of an Andean bear.
The drink, called Seven Roots, looks like a magic potion Gargamel would use to catch the Smurfs. But it’s real—one of numerous folkloric cures dispensed by traditional healers, or shamans, in Peru.
“If you have sexual impotence, you should scrape a part of the bear's penis bone and place it in the drink,” says the woman, whose shop, in the city of Chachapoyas, offers various shamanic cures. “However,” she adds, “if you want to possess this animal’s strength, you need to put in whole bones.”
The sour taste of the drink doesn’t differ much from that of any other cheap rum I've tried. The difference is what lies behind it: illegal trade in the body parts of the Andean bear, more commonly known as the spectacled bear. It is also the bear the cartoon character Paddington bear is based on.
I ask her how she sources Andean bear parts.
“We have them brought from the forest in Lamas,” she says, referring to an indigenous community in the San Martín region of northern Peru. “You have to shoot them straight in the heart. If you miss, it can attack you as it is a very strong animal.”
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2019/05/andean-paddington-bears-poached-in-peru/?cmpid=org=ngp::mc=crm-email::src=ngp::cmp=Editorial::add=Animals_20190606::rid=594148660
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This breaks my heart. Just like how I feel when sea turtles are eaten. I don't know why we're even called "human beings". 
