Polar Bears

MKE Zoo guy

MKE Zoo guy

Well-Known Member
5+ year member
Today was my zoos free behind the scenes tour and one of the stops was the zoos private library. Talking with the staff volunteer about polar bears since my zoo has one and I believe it’s one of the oldest in the States.

Something I didn’t know was that apparently in the early 90s there was an overabundance of polar bears in the States zoos. So many zoos put their bears on birth control. Soon the numbers started quickly dropping and soon we weren’t birthing polar bears as quickly as they were dying.

That being said, Alaska is not shipping polar bears out of the wild, and Canada is not shipping them outside their country. So that leaves the Polar Bears in the States in a situation. They are not actively going the artificial route and I didn’t hear how well that’s going.

Does anyone know if this at all true? The overabundance of polar bears cause zoos to place to many on birth control and that polar bears aren’t being ship out to zoos to help with population growth in zoos?
 
There is a ban on Canadian bears being imported into the U.S. Unfortunately now there are only about 40 or so polar bears left in American zoos and the last birth was at Columbus at I believe at the end of 2015. Since then, breeding has been unsuccessful, and 2017 saw multiple specimens decease.
 
Has there always been a ban on importing Canadian polar bears into the USA? What about rescues from Alaska? Is that illegal?
 
pachyderm pro said:
Unfortunately now there are only about 40 or so polar bears left in American zoos and the last birth was at Columbus at I believe at the end of 2015. .
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Hope was born at Toledo in Dec 2015, Nora was born a month earlier at Columbus. 4 more were born at Columbus in November 2016, with 3 surviving - Amelia Gray, Nuniq, and Neva. They all have the same father.
 
elefante said:
Has there always been a ban on importing Canadian polar bears into the USA? What about rescues from Alaska? Is that illegal?
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From what I was told there is also a ban on polar bears being imported from Alaska including rescue ones.
 
Europe has several cups yearly now, surely there wouldn't be a ban on importig those?
 
lintworm said:
Europe has several cups yearly now, surely there wouldn't be a ban on importig those?
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The US placed polar bears on their list of endangered species and this resulted in almost total import ban from foreign countries, including Europe.
 
MKE Zoo guy said:
From what I was told there is also a ban on polar bears being imported from Alaska including rescue ones.
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I don’t believe this is true. The Alaska Zoo sent a rescue cub south a couple of years ago. What is true, however, is that there are very few rescue cubs. Unlike Brown Bears and Black Bears, Polar Bears live remotely enough to where they just don’t present themselves, very often, into situations where a cub might be orphaned in such a manner that human intervention is likely or possible (road kill, trouble bears, hunting “accidents” - which incidentally was the source of the last Polar Bear cub rescue).

While Polar Bears do frequently visit Arctic Coast communities in the early fall, the fact is that during a cub’s first few months (when they might be rescuable), the cubs are out on the sea ice with their mothers. The cubs are already pretty big by the time they come ashore in late summer. By the next season they are approaching the size of an adult Black Bear. I think therefore that the “rescue window” for even cubs is very narrow.

Please note that my comments above are my opinion only.
 
Pleistohorse said:
I don’t believe this is true. The Alaska Zoo sent a rescue cub south a couple of years ago. What is true, however, is that there are very few rescue cubs. Unlike Brown Bears and Black Bears, Polar Bears live remotely enough to where they just don’t present themselves, very often, into situations where a cub might be orphaned in such a manner that human intervention is likely or possible (road kill, trouble bears, hunting “accidents” - which incidentally was the source of the last Polar Bear cub rescue).

While Polar Bears do frequently visit Arctic Coast communities in the early fall, the fact is that during a cub’s first few months (when they might be rescuable), the cubs are out on the sea ice with their mothers. The cubs are already pretty big by the time they come ashore in late summer. By the next season they are approaching the size of an adult Black Bear. I think therefore that the “rescue window” for even cubs is very narrow.

Please note that my comments above are my opinion only.
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I appreciate the information, I was curious because I figured that Alaska would work with the AZA and accredited institutions, so when I heard there was a ban I was confused.
 
Winnipeg's Assiniboine Park and Zoo has been incredibly successful in rescuing Manitoba's orphan cubs. All of their cubs were rescued between 9-11 months old. Since their center opened they have taken in 10 cubs at this age; Aurora, Kaska, Blizzard, Star, York, Eli (who has died since due to a trauma), Nanuq, Siku, Baffin and Willow. All have adapted just fine. Furthermore their first rescue was two - three year old Storm. He was a nuisance bear and it was kill him or try captivity because relocation had not worked. He was given a chance at life and he adjusted as well and even took to Toronto's hand reared cub Hudson. He is a pal to all.

Unfortunately Canada's space is limited. With 22 bears at 5 facilities there isn't a ton of room left. Toronto is trying to send two of its grown cubs, Hudson and Humphrey to Europe but so far they are at home. Winnipeg has taken to neutering its mature males which is a real shame given their wild genetics but where will we put any cubs?
 
It seems really shortsighted to neuter instead of sending them to the US, which has plenty of places that could take on a few.
 
I’m kinda curious on what happened that there is this refusal of importing polar bears to the US.
 
I came across these pages the other day and it was interesting to read. The one talks about the zoos that still have them as of Feb. and also the problems that the zoos are facing. The other was an article posted in 2012 by the Washington Post. Interesting some of the things mentioned in the post goes into depth in the blog post. Its crazy that the US Fish and Wildlife Services has control over polar bears because they are deemed marine animals and as such you need to show that importing them into zoos will increase their population in the wild, as quoted in the Post article.

Overall, its just interesting that we use to have so many in the states and then we stopped breeding and truly taking care of them, and now we are in a spot where theres only 45 polar bears still in the states. Although of that 45 a small percentage is still able to breed. Not to mention some of the larger zoos have no plans for the polar bears in their collection.

I wonder if Polar Bears are on a forced phase out unless something happens to change the laws and we develop a healthy breeding program in the US.

My Polar Bear Friends and Friends of Polar Bears: Only 45 polar bears left in U.S. zoos
Zoos want to import polar bears to save the species
 
When the Henry Vilas Zoo opened their Arctic Passage exhibit, they made denning areas to hopefully do work with breeding polar bears.

Not long ago, they weren't successful in artificially inseminating Berit, a bear they had gotten from Cincinnati.

Suka just moved to Detriot, but I don't think they can breed large carnivores there? Or is that rule gone?

Sakari moved to Buffalo Zoo to breed with their female.

I don't know what Henry Vilas plans on doing with Berit, she's an extremely happy lady in her beautiful exhibit. It'd be really nice for them to pair her with a male.
 
EsserWarrior said:
Suka just moved to Detriot, but I don't think they can breed large carnivores there? Or is that rule gone?
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The ban exempts polar bears. Detroit Zoo has been trying for years, but did not have luck with their previous pair. Hopefully the switch will have a better outcome in the next couple of years.
 
Any marine mammal native to the US is under the purview of USFWS. It should be noted that polar bears are not the only species in zoos affected by that agency; manatees and sea otters cannot even be bred in US zoos.
 
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