I'm growing bigger and learning to recognise the foods I will find in the wild.  I hope to be released quite soon, before the end of 2010!

From 1st to 4th October, to tie in with World Animal Day on the 4th, I'm asking everyone to help raise awareness of Andean bears.  Tell your friends, ask your library for books, party with your neighbours, read stories with your grandchildren, arrange a teddy bears' picnic, barbeque with coworkers, visit your nearest Andean bear at the zoo, whatever you like, but  spread the word.

Find out more my Facebook Profile where you can join in!  Or download the Andean Bear Quiz - answers will be published on the Andean Bear Foundation website on Monday.

Rehab is great - it involves learning to eat new things, and I am really enjoying it!  I'm getting used to the altitude up here, getting used to not seeing so many people (but seeing deer, and foxes, and condors instead) and getting used to a new diet of things that a wild bear would eat.

It's very peaceful up here, and I'm really looking forward to the end of the year when I will be released to go and wander in the huge, beautiful landscape I can see from my cage.  Big thanks to everyone who helped to get me this far!

I'm now in rehab, learning how to be a wild bear!  Thanks to all of you who donated, the Andean Bear Foundation were able to repair and roof the rehab cage at Hacienda Yanahurco and I moved in on 12th June 2010.  It's great here! I can see Cotopaxi volcano, with snow on top, right from my cage.  There are lots of wild deer, and a little fox comes to see me sometimes.  And occasionally there are huge condors flying overhead.

I am learning what to eat in the wild, and eating a special diet to make me big and strong.  The ABF think I need about 6 months more of growing before I will be ready to be a wild bear.

I wanted to share my birthday party with you all, but sadly I couldn't get on to ammado that day.  But I was thinking of you all!

Soon I will move on to the next step on my route to freedom - rehab.  The Andean Bear Foundation will need around $35 a day to cover the costs of my rehabilitation, so they've given me the challenge of finding it!  My friends here on ammado and on Facebook have been wonderful so far.  You can donate at www.andeanbear.org, on Facebook at http://apps.facebook.com/causes/462067 or right here on ammado.