CRAFTY volunteers are being asked to knit one, purl one and save one bear ahead of a Peruvian expedition.

Members of the Scientific Exploration Society, based in Shaftesbury, will be venturing through tropical cloud forest high up in the Andes next year to help protect the rare spectacled bear.

They hope to take hundreds of tiny knitted versions of the bear with them to be given to children after visits to the dentist.

Society member Shirley Critchley of Lower Parkstone said help is urgently needed to create the animals.

“We need volunteer knitters who are happy to help us make hundreds of these bears,” she said.

“These will be given to children in Peru after dental extractions. The aim is that by giving them out as presents, we will help to change hearts and minds so that the children will love the bears instead of shooting them as they grow older.”

A group of adventurers from the Society will visit the Yanachaga Chemillen National Park, which occupies some 500 square miles, in July next year.

The team hope to encourage the indigenous people, who live in villages around the nature reserve, to protect the spectacled bear by preserving the forest.

Mrs Critchley, a former schoolteacher who has travelled to Nepal, India, Bolivia, Brazil, Paragonia and Canada with the Society, said: “The bears, which really are adorable, are an endangered species.

“They are being shot because they frighten people, and also because they attack crops.”

The expedition will be led by Colonel John Blashford-Snell, who founded the Society in 1969 with colleagues.

As well as protecting the bear, the volunteers hope to provide aid to Peruvian communities, including medical and dental treatment and the provision of reading glasses.

Mrs Critchley said: “We are looking for the bears to be knitted to any pattern, but they must be black, about six inches in height, and they must be wearing a pair of spectacles around their eyes.

“I’d like to call on any knitting groups or individuals to help us make enough.

“It’s a brilliant thing to be doing and we very much hope it will make a difference.”

For more information, email Shirley.critchley1@btinternet.com