In a photo comment just in the beginning of this year I promised forum member Dan to write a summary of my visit to Orsa Bear Park, Sweden. That post never became written and I forgot to do it. So now I thought, as their big project Polar World was inaugurated today it would be appropriate to write a description of the park as well. Better later than never…. Map, Gallery Orsa Bear Park (Orsa Björnpark) opened in 1986. As the name suggest, they have focused primarily on bears (brown bears). The park is owned/managed along with a smaller ski resort. The ski slopes are just next to the park. So, naturally the zoo is situated on a hillside. That’s why a visit requests quite a bit of your stamina. Basically, a visit is a walk up to the top and down again, and it’s partly a pretty steep slope. So a visit is a real work out. But it’s worth all efforts. It’s a majestic view from the higher parts of the park and you can see for miles (not during my visit, I didn’t see further than 30 m due to the fog ). The top is situated 561 meters above sea. My visit in December last year was my second visit there, but compared to my first visit eight years earlier it felt almost like it was a different park. During those years in between the park has changed quite much and grown much bigger. Some new species had been added as well. They still have the bears as their distinguishing mark but have in the past few years begun to house predator species from the northern hemisphere that can’t be found in the Swedish wildlife. For example the Amur tigers that arrived in 2007. Their species: Brown bears (Ursus arctos) 2 subsp. European brown bear (Ursus arctos arctos) Kamchatka bear (Ursus arctos beringianus) Red fox (Vulpes vulpes) Grey wolf (Canis lupus) Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) Amur tiger (Panthera tigris altaica) Eurasian eagle owl (Bubo bubo) Wolverine (Gulo gulo) The bears were of course hibernating during my visit, but I was able to see the rest of the species except the wolverine and the red foxes, which I didn’t manage to spot. As already mentioned; their new main attraction are the polar bears and their exhibit Polar World which is said to be the largest in the world. I’m planning to start a separate thread about Polar World. I enjoyed my visit a lot. Had almost the park to myself (saw 2 other visitors). It was exciting to see all new enclosures and animals which didn’t existed back in 2000. They aim to build big, natural enclosures to the animals and I must say that they’ve done that very well. The new entrance building contains the Predator centre, which is a big predator exhibition with lots of information about predators (Scandinavian) and stuffed ones. There is cinema room where you can watch movies in this subject and viewing window to the adjoining wolf enclosure among other stuff. This wolf enclosure and the lynx enclosure are found at the bottom of the hill near the entrance. The lynx enclosure is the smallest of the mammal enclosures and together with the brown bears enclosures is that the only one which hasn’t change since my first visit. The good news is that their planning to build new bigger enclosures for the lynxes and also for the wolverines (maybe already built now??). To get up to the top you can choose two ways with the brown bears between them. The Amur tiger enclosure entitled Tiger Mountain is placed on the top of the hill. It looked like a really great enclosure but unfortunately for me the tigers were shut inside their house due to work in the outdoor enclosure. The tiger house is open to the visitors so I could at least see the tigers but it would have been great to see them outside in the snow. In the tiger house is there also an exhibition about tigers and a conference room. They greatest part of this relatively zoo is their spacious enclosures for all species (exception for the lynx) which are as natural as they can be. But they’re also a bit boring. All of them a made of a simple steel fence all the way around. An easy way to fence in great natural areas for the animals but after a couple of hours as a visitor you gets a bit tired of that. At some places there are ramps that take you above this endless fence and give a great view of the bear enclosures and the tiger enclosure. To sum it all up: Orsa Bearpark has some great exhibits for mainly bears and Scandinavian carnivores and I really enjoyed it. I will definitely go there soon again, just to check out Polar World could be worth a visit itself. Over and out.
Thanks for the review. There are obviously very few animal species, but an interesting park nonetheless.
A snow leopard called Baatar is due to arrive in Orsa in spring or early summer from Santillana del Mar in Spain. It is hoped that a male will join her later in the year. Two Persian leopards 'Hannah' and 'Jihlek' will be moved to Skopje Zoo in Macedonia and the breeding pair of 'Barrack' and 'Sorya' will remain with hope of breeding success in the spring. Interesting that they keep Persians, I would have thought that Amur leopards might be more appropriate but they seem to be doing ok. The 'Leopard Center' opened in June 2010.
On September 28, 0.1 Siberian tiger called, Zaira arrived from Port Lympne, UK to Orsa. The plan is to breed her with the tiger male, Yegor. Ny amurtiger för att rädda arten – nu inflyttad i Orsa Rovdjurspark
A keeper has been attacked by a bear in Orsa today, and unfortunately died from his injuries. https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/dalarna/man-allvarligt-skadad-efter-bjornattack-i-orsa-djurpark
A Persian leopard was born at Orsa Bear Park Oct. 3, 2017. Breeding pair is Barack x Soraya. Link: En persisk leopardunge är född – fick uppleva snö för första gången
On January 16, 0.1 Snow leopard called, Bhavari arrived from Wuppertal, GER. She's born 7/6-2016. On January 17, 1.1 Siberian tiger cubs have been born to Zaira (B Port Lympne, UK 2010) & Yegor (B Amersfoort, NL 2008). On January 19, 0.1 Polar bear arrived from Marineland - Antibes, FRA. Her name is Hope and she's born 26/11-2014. Hope is also daughter to the famous Polar bear, Flocke (B Nürnberg 2007). Here below is a video from when Hope was outdoor for the first time after her arrival to Orsa. https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=1907495165951570
Can any regular visitors please tell me when Amur Tiger Yegor moved to Norden's Ark and Bojan arrived at Orsa?
bad news the zoo is gone close in okt 2022 due to the new mangemnt of the resort whare the zoo is lockated wanting to fockus one difrent things.
So sad. Male tiger Bojan, who was born in Stendal and later lived in Nordens Ark and had cubs with their female Sparta, was moved to Orsa to trade places with Yegor Zov. When Orsa closed the tigers had to move to other parks. This article explains that Bojan died during transport, he had been drugged for the trip and was later found deceased. Tiger mystiskt död – före flytt till djurpark
So sad, and the polar bear that died at Jimmy’s Farm to - at least the other polar bears and a brown bear were rescued! Do you know what happened to the other animals?
These are the moves I know about: Polar bears: 1,0 Wilbär moved to Dierenrijk in the Netherlands 0,2 Ewa and daughter Miki moved to Jimmy's Farm & Wildlife Park in the UK. Miki died there shortly after arrival. 2,1 Hope and her sons Nanook and Noori moved to Peak Wildlife Park in the UK. Amur Tigers: 1,0 Bojan died while being sedated for a transport. 0,2 Zaria and daughter moved to ZooParc Overloon in the Netherlands. The daughter moved on shortly afterwards to Ouwehands Dierenpark also in the Netherlands. 1,0 Kratz moved to Zoo Magdeburg in Germany. Kodiak bear: 1,0 Taquka moved to Sóstó Zoo in Hungary. European brown bears: 1,0 Felix has moved to Sóstó Zoo in Hungary. 3,0 Lucifer, Lillebror and Momoa moved to Zoo Berlin in Germany. 1,1 Mette and Bambam moved to Zoo Aschersleben in Germany. 0,3 Mana, Minion and Naya have moved to ZSL Whipsnade Zoo in the UK. 1,0 Diego will move to Jimmy's Farm & Wildlife Park in the UK. Persian leopards: 1,0 Barack has moved to Zoo Plock in Poland.
Thanks for taking the time to reply, it’s great to hear that most of the animals were transferred safely! Hopefully all the others not listed were too!
