Polar Bear Exhibit

March 18th, 2011.

I saw the thumbnail and thought...oh that looks nice. Now I see they don't have access to the grass. Is there any grass in their exhibit?

There is zero grass in the exhibit, and in my opinion this polar bear habitat is now badly outdated and in dire need of an overhaul. When it was first built 30 years ago (early 1980's) it won the AZA Best Exhibit award, but times have certainly changed since then. The zoo currently holds 3 male bears but in the future there is a desire to become a breeding center for polar bears.

There are multiple bears in this exhbit so some of them are held off-show in cages which look like your average dog rescue shelter pens. It is heavily flawed in my opinion but could be massively improved by incorporating the paddocks to the rear. You could even have a walkway over it rather like the skandinavisk dyrepark in Denmark.

I saw this exhibit in 1995 and thought it was a dump then.