It seems that as Pike, Andy and Ulu are getting on in their lives (twenty is old for a bear apparently, even though they have been known to live to forty) . With age comes boredom and since the zoo can’t update their eighty year old enclosures, staff have had to come up with new ways to keep the animals stimulated.
Apparently the question of how old polar bears are, is one that has puzzled scientists for years, now it seems new research has narrowed the range, previously estimated to be fifty thousand to one million years ago. We now know from the latest evidence that polar bears lived alongside wooly mammoths thanks to a rare fossil find in Norway’s Svalbard archipelago.
Although these podcasts don’t have anything directly to do with polar bears, they do deal with the role of zoos in the arenas of education, awareness and conservation. No doubt some readers will be opposed to any animals in captivity, and others realise that zoos are their only interaction with the animals that they love, and in many cases may have been their first point of contacts. Continue Reading…
According to a new study published by the Humane Society International and International Fund for Animal Welfare, entitled “The Economics of Polar Bear Trophy Hunting in Canada” - there is a negligble finincaial benefit to the sport hunting and body part trade of polar bears to the Inuit communities. The further charge that the income Continue Reading…
In a story from the ‘Globe and Mail’ it has been reported that the US will attemp to ban the trade of Polar Bear parts at next weeks Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (C.I.T.E.S.). A recent CBC article (found here) confirms that their is already a ban by the European Union. Continue Reading…
