I know I am straying a bit from the main topic, but can you elaborate on this more? I always was curious why zoos were planning future polar bear exhibits because there are not a lot of individuals left to go around. Would holders be more beneficial if more polar bears had cubs each year and it allow to place them temporarily until they are of breeding age? I'd love to hear your expertise, thank you!
I'm not an expert on polar bears by any means, and don't work with the species - but I can give you the chatter I hear about it from professionals. Unsurprisingly - it's largely very similar to what is available here.
The polar bear population obviously faces an issue of low numbers in this day and age - due to factors of the past such as unintended sterilization through birth control use, neutering individuals once deemed not genetically valuable/overrepresented at times, loss of holders, import/export + breeding of non-releasable restrictions, and overall strange management choices at times.
It's no secret that the loss of *some* previous holders was a good thing. For places who weren't willing/able to keep their bears in facilities of a higher standard - it was for the best that they simply step out of the game.
However, on the flip side - there have been some cases where grizzlies in particular get in the way of the population reaching it's full potential. Zoos with financial means in northern climates building big, beautiful bear exhibits - for grizzlies that are for simple display purposes. There's some annoyance with this - however, do keep in mind that it gets back to that seas vs giants comment I made. You can't just plop some polar bears into a grizzly bear exhibit - so what's done is largely done once it's built.
While you're correct that the population is small and it can supposedly be difficult to find enough bears to go around - the inside sentiment I tend to hear is that the SSP/facilities need to do a better job of being strategic about placing bears together who have a high likelihood of being successful, and we need bears who have clearly demonstrated that they're never going to produce cubs to be the singleton bears at facilities who only seem to be interested in display.
For example - bears such as Talini, Haley and Anana should really be the single/companion bears to non-breeders at places such as Oregon, KC, and Memphis - places not trying terribly hard to breed their bears at the moment. On the contrary - the single held males at KC and Memphis should *absolutely* be paired up with a female they have a good shot at siring cubs with.
The fact that Amelia Gray just moved to breed as the secondary female with Hudson in Brookfield is a poor choice, for example. He's consistently never produced cubs with his many mates that he's had, is distantly related to AG, and already has a perfectly good mate there with him. She really should have gone to be with Koda from Memphis, as a secondary female with Lee at Columbus, instead of Haley at Detroit with Nuka, Toledo with Kali... you get the idea. This is just one of a number of poor choices that seem to be made with polar bears in the US yearly.
I also have some annoyance that places like Brookfield and Columbus are so insistent on holding both polar and grizzly bears in the same complex - that extra space gummed up by the grizzlies would likely benefit the polar greatly - especially if they're looking to hold/breed multiple females at once. This is me speaking from my keeper perspective - it's very, very annoying/exhausting to care for "dead weight" when space is already pressed for a more happening program... and you know full well that all animals involved would benefit from increased space, flexibility, and undivided keeper attention/facility resources. But of course, upper management doesn't understand that when they're not the ones taking care of the animals every day!
Another inside tidbit - there is a lot of displeasure with the mismanagement resulting in endless transfers for some bears. Bears such as AG and Nora being on their fourth (and likely not final) home by age 9 or 10 is largely seen as wrong, and a symptom of the willy nilly attitude taken with the population management. It's a bit more understandable with Nora given her colorful life/change of breeding circumstance... but AG should have been placed somewhere with an appropriate male the first (or maybe second) time and stayed there ideally for life. The transfer process, new keepers, new home, new con-specifics, etc. is
stressful on a lot of animals - doing it 3, 4, 5, or more times is just plain unnecessary and bad management.
So in short, the population needs to be handled a bit more strategically first to grow. However, once it does - we are going to need more holders. Building for non-releasable grizzlies mildly gets in the way of that - but it isn't quite the same equivalence.
