Yep, Brumas was even a big deal out here in Australia. Little kids (as I was then in the 1950s) were told all about it at school. Getting back to the problem of housing not only polar bears but other big but solitary carnivores, like tigers, is that decent enclosures cost a lot of money and effort. Most zoos therefore have one public display enclosure per species and basically solitary animals are forced to live with each other. If they won't, then each spends every second day locked in an off-exhibit holding den (rotation.) It also restricts the number of such animals held, usually to just a pair, and is not really conducive to establishing a colony.
Brumas was a remarkable phenomenum. I think some socialogists even put some of the interest down to the fact that Londoners were still recovering from the War (she was born November 1949) and flocked to the zoo for some light relief.. certainly the zoo has never ever seen crowds on that scale ever again(the 1950 attendance figures have never been equalled again.) I remember seeing Brumas but only when she was already an adult bear. Initially the press said the cub was a 'he' so her true sex remained unrevealed for some months. Also she died quite young, only about eight years old and hadn't bred though she had a mate 'Ulla' who outlived her. Nor did her parents 'Ivy' and 'Mischa' have any more successful births..
