The bear grotto currently houses a solitary 35-year old polar bear. The Andean died a few years back, and the other polar bear (she was ~32) was euthanized last year. A pair of grizzly sisters occupy the adjacent Grizzly Gulch, a more recent (and decent) exhibit space. Occasionally they'll occupy the easternmost grotto when their space is being cleaned, but that's rare these days.
There are 4 seperate grotto exhbits. One of them is connected to the neighboring Grizzly Gulch exhibit. The Polar Bear is in a larger one that used to be two seperate grottos that were converted into one.
I don't know how to do a multi-quote response on this forum so I'll just say thank you to Chimpangeek and Buldeo for explaining that to me. I *thought* there'd been a bear (the Andean) that had died a couple of years ago, but couldn't remember what species it was. I had no idea Bear Grotto was divided into 4 areas. Thank you again.
The San Francisco Zoo should really build a decent chimpanzee exhibit or phase out the species before bringing orangutans in.
The Chimps, Orangutans and Siamangs were supposed to have new exhibits back in 2007/2008, the Great Ape Forest. It wouldve been located in teh forest area near the Gorillas, near the Southern portion of the African Savannah. It was supposed to be funded from a bond past by the City in the late 1990s, that was part of a vast renovation/rebuilding of the Zoo. The African Savannah, Lemur Forest, Entrance Village and Cafe ended up being much more expensive than anticipated, and Zoo donors weren't willing to fund it, so it ended up not getting built. The Zoo sent away its remaining Orangutan, its bachelor pair of Gorillas (who each resided in the triple grottos. And moved the Siamangs to the Primate DIscovery Center and renovated and gave the Chimps access to all three of the Triple grottos. In retrospect, the Chimps probably shouldve been sent away instead of the Orang
