Hafnarfjordur Zoo Circa 1984 - Polar Bear

Circa 1984

This small seaside zoo opened with just Common Seals in 1968 and closed in 1987 with a collection of mostly Icelandic and Nordic animals but also exotic fauna such as Lions and Chimpanzees. It was in Hafnarfjordur, a town in the metropolitan Reykjavik area, one of only two zoos to have been founded in Iceland. Reykjavik Farm Zoo is the other. Many of the facilities were inadequate at best and horrible at worst. Between 1976 and 1990 they caught Killer Whales for zoos and sea life parks around the world. I have several guides and can answer questions if you PM or comment on these photos my dad took.

The female bear came as a cub in April 1970 from Greenland after a native hunter had shot her mother. The male had been confisticated by the Danish authorities and sent first to Copenhagen Zoo. The Danish zoo had a special relationship with the Icelandic one and agreed to give them what they thought was a female but later proved a male. The male died in the mid-1980s from blood poisoning after stepping on a broken bottle thrown into his pool by a visitor. The female had to be destroyed when the zoo closed as no other zoo wanted to take her, probably due to her age.