About 5.5km south of Tuñón (or a 1.1km walk from the Área Recreativa Buyera), the Senda del Oso reaches the Cercado Osero, a 40,000-sq-metre hillside compound home to three female Cantabrian brown bears, Paca, Tola and Molinera. The two older bears, Paca and Tola, were orphaned as cubs by a hunter in 1989. Since 2008 they have spent much of their time in a second enclosure just below the path at the same spot.
A fourth (male) bear, Furaco, was brought in from Cantabria's Parque de la Naturaleza Cabárceno with hopes of breeding with Paca and Tola, and may still be found in the same enclosure when you read this. Hopes that baby bears might ensue were abandoned in 2011, but Paca, Tola and Furaco were joined in December 2013 by one-year-old Molinera, who failed to integrate back into the wild after being treated for various life-threatening injuries and is now generally kept out of sight. There is talk of returning the three female bears to the original upper compound, where Paca and Tola used to be fed around noon and 4.30pm daily (outside their December-to-February hibernation) at a spot beside the path.
