Johannesburg Zoo - Oct 2011

Polar Bear Enclosure

Would these be the most southernmost polar bears in the world?
In what is a stinker of an enclosure.

Quite reminiscent of Bristol's. And that cannot be viewed as being a compliment.

South Africans are as much entitled to see polar bears as me. But with the huge job of getting Jo'burg's population connected to their own endemic megafauna, you do wonder whether there's any point in replacing these bears, let alone their enclosure

Nope - still some in Buenos Aires....

Enclosure looked fairly new actually but I agree too small and unimaginative....all a bit old school

Reminded me of a much smaller/ poorer version of the one at Heythrop....

Looks like these aren’t there anymore - any idea what happened to them?

@Cat-Man Wang, the last male, died in 2014, The exhibit is currently empty but plans for either penguins, jaguars or komodo dragons are in place.
Currently the main idea is penguins, which would suit this exhibit most.

Joburg has kept Polar bears for most of it's history, Originally occupying the current red panda pit, when in 1984 a pair arrived from Japan to live in this exhibit until 2014.

Thanks Nix!

@Nix do you have a pic of the red panda pit. In 2011 (when I took this pic), the panda were kept on a large cage in the 'small cat' area. I'm wondering what this pit was being used for in 2011?

@Newzooboy I do have a picture of how it currently looks, I don't like it very much and think the exhibit in the cat area was more suitable for the pandas.


In 2011, This exhibit housed Snowy owls, which left sometime in 2013.

I also have a question for you regarding the zoo, did you happen to see the snow leopard they had on display around that time? it was housed in one of the baboon exhibits near the elephants.

Hi @Nix
Thank you for this...
I agree that this looks messy/ busy and the previous enclosure worked better. What is in that enclosure now?
I don't remember the Snowy Owls if I'm honest.
I do remember the baboon enclosures near the elephants, but I don't think they had a Snow Leopard on display at that time. At least if they did, I didn't take any pics (enclosure or animal).