Finally back to submitting our weekly favourite polar bear video from our vast collection. Let’s go way back to our honeymoon in 2005 and although the snow was sparse and the bears were even more sparse, the ones we did see were very entertaining. Our driver told us that some photographers come out for weeks just to see polar bears wrestling like this (although he may have just been trying to make us feel better!)
If you live in Edinburgh, get down to your local zoo now, because by the end of the week, one of your favourite attractions will be moving house! Mercedes the polar bear, who has been living at the Edinburgh Zoo for the last 25 years will soon be living at a specially built enclosure in Highland Wildlife Park, near Kingussie.
Mercedes, named after the car manufacturer who helped contribute to her her original relocation to Edinburgh, was to be shot for repeatedly entering Churchill in Canada in search of food, before she was saved. She is the mother of two cubs, To-Nuik and Ohoto, but has been on her own for the last fifteen years – as they mostly are in the wild.
Sometime later this week, she will board a truck in a special crate in which she has room to walk around to make the trip to a much more stimulating environment. Her new living quarters is the largest in Europe, covering some four acres and was built by Royal Engineers in training before deploying to Afghanistan on the former wolf enclosure site, for a quarter of the original £300,000 price tag.
As is standard at most polar bear exhibits, Mercedes will be given time to become accustom to her new surroundings and probably won’t be on display until the end of October or early November.
I Love Polar Bears Dot Net has just finished its first week of daily publication of polar bear pictures.
These snaps are from our 2008 North American Polar Bear Pilgrimage in which we saw nine zoos and also went back to Churchill in Canada to see polar bears in the wild.
First stop was Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, then Detroit Zoo, Toledo Zoo, Baltimore Zoo, Philapelphia Zoo, Bronx Zoo, Central Park Zoo, Winnipeg Zoo then it was onto see Polar Bears in the wild in Churchill and then finally San Francisco Zoo (don’t worry we did go to a few theme aprks as well – it wasn’t all polar bears. only about 75%!)
Here are the links for the best photos from Cleveland Metroparks Zoo.
We had a great behind the scenes tour at the Zoo and had a great half day before heading off to Cedar Point to Ride roller coasters! We did an interview with the keepers and will be posting it in the future.
On a sad note, the bear who was the second oldest in captivity had been sick but was on the mend, but we heard a week later she had died They were expecting her to return to display and said that she was in great health when we were there on October 17 2008.
They were expecting her to return to display and said that she was in great health when we were there on October 17 2008.