Brookfield Zoo $27 Million Great Bear Wilderness

snowleopard

snowleopard

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Brookfield Zoo bears to get new digs -- chicagotribune.com

"Great Bear Wilderness" opens in the spring at Chicago's Brookfield Zoo, one of the largest and best zoos in the United States. The new exhibit area is listed in the newspaper article as being 6 acres, but that seems to include the "Regenstein Wolf Woods", an outstanding 2-acre enclosure for Mexican gray wolves.

The zoo's 3 polar bears and 2 grizzly bears will move from their 1930's concrete grottoes to spacious, more naturalistic environments. The dens will have skylights, the pools will be heated, there will be underwater viewing of the polar bears, and there will also be exhibits for bison, ravens and bald eagles. The zoo's shops will even sell Grizzly Blend coffee, with the profits going toward buying and protecting threatened grizzly habitat.
 
The 1934 grottoes will be emptied (bulldozed later?) and on May 8th, 2010 "Great Bear Wilderness" opens to the public.

This article includes an aerial photo of the new grizzly exhibit:

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(The link does open on my computer, even though it says "denied")
 
@reduakari: I totally agree, and I'm a little disappointed with what is shown in the photo. I know someone that recently visited Brookfield, and they told me that the bison yard is quite large and impressive. However, it is not too difficult to create a decent bison paddock, while bears are a different breed altogether.:)
 
How very strange! 27 million dollars and this is what the bears end up with? OK, so there are enclosures for other animals as well, but still...

"Great Bear Wilderness", indeed?

Updated grottoes, nothing more than that it seems.

:confused:
 
Dan said:
How very strange! 27 million dollars and this is what the bears end up with? OK, so there are enclosures for other animals as well, but still...

"Great Bear Wilderness", indeed?

Updated grottoes, nothing more than that it seems.

:confused:
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Woah, you are way too quick to judge... the enclosures have not grown in yet, and did you look through the whole slideshow of the link I posted? The one enclosure is quite large.
 
BlackRhino said:
Woah, you are way too quick to judge... the enclosures have not grown in yet, and did you look through the whole slideshow of the link I posted? The one enclosure is quite large.
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I believe the large enclosure in the photo is the bison area--nice but the bears are getting a raw deal. On some earlier post there was a site plan that indicated the three bear exhibits are all about the same size--around 8000 square feet each--which is fairly small. In any case, the way they are built, completely surrounded by walls of "rock," guarantees they will look small and "grotto-like" to the viewers. I'm surprised Brookfield settled for this, especially given how much land the zoo has.
 
Yeah I guess I am pretty quick to judge, have to admit that ;). And you and I often differ in opinion about zoo exhibits, which is totally OK with me.

But I did watch the slide how. And if picture no 5 is also a bear exhibit then I have no objections towards it. It is not pretty, it could do with a lot more things to make it a more interesting environment for the bears to explore but -just like you say - maybe it´ll get better when it is grown in.

But the other enclosures? Not impressive. "Three times bigger than the grottoes" (built in 1934), as it says in some of the news articles, doesn´t sound like much of an improvement to me.
 
I visited Brookfield Zoo in 2008, and it is a MASSIVE zoo both in terms of its animal collection and the land at its disposal. The 1934 bear grottoes are small and concrete, and basically as bad as anyone can imagine them to be. The new bear yards are much better, but the hefty price tag of $27 million made me think that they would be world class and downright amazing. I'm happy that the bears will be rotated through the three different exhibits, but the bison have got the best enclosure out of all of the animals.:) In the future the growth of foliage might make the exhibits better, but when the Greater Vancouver Zoo has a 1.5 acre grizzly bear enclosure, Zoo Montana has a 2-acre grizzly exhibit, the Minnesota Zoo and Woodland Park Zoo both have smaller but brilliant grizzly exhibits, and the Northwest Trek Wildlife Park has another multi-acre pair of black bear and grizzly bear enclosures...and for $27 million Brookfield creates enclosures with enormous rock walls that resemble modern grottoes? The photos make the new bear exhibits appear to be of average size and rather disappointing, and many of us perhaps expected Brookfield to have something better in their new "Great Bear Wilderness".
 
snowleopard said:
I visited Brookfield Zoo in 2008, and it is a MASSIVE zoo both in terms of its animal collection and the land at its disposal. The 1934 bear grottoes are small and concrete, and basically as bad as anyone can imagine them to be. The new bear yards are much better, but the hefty price tag of $27 million made me think that they would be world class and downright amazing. I'm happy that the bears will be rotated through the three different exhibits, but the bison have got the best enclosure out of all of the animals.:) In the future the growth of foliage might make the exhibits better, but when the Greater Vancouver Zoo has a 1.5 acre grizzly bear enclosure, Zoo Montana has a 2-acre grizzly exhibit, the Minnesota Zoo and Woodland Park Zoo both have smaller but brilliant grizzly exhibits, and the Northwest Trek Wildlife Park has another multi-acre pair of black bear and grizzly bear enclosures...and for $27 million Brookfield creates enclosures with enormous rock walls that resemble modern grottoes? The photos make the new bear exhibits appear to be of average size and rather disappointing, and many of us perhaps expected Brookfield to have something better in their new "Great Bear Wilderness".
Click to expand...

Well of the exhibits you mentioned, I think Woodland Park and Minnesota are best. I think these new exhibits are a major improvement over the old grottoes and I think many of you are being overly critical. The fact that the bears are rotated means that have 24,000 feet of enclosure to explore.
 
They don't look bad. It seems that visitors will have a "from above" vantage point. I'll just agree with Snowleopard on the 27 mil price tag and expectations. That's a ton of cash to sink into an exhibit and not have it come out exceptional. It'll be interesting to see how Polar Frontier compares to GBW.

In the end, I guess the lesson we learn from this is that throwing money at an exhibit does not guarantee that you get what you pay for. I'm not saying it's not going to be a good exhibit, but I'm not expecting mindblowing stuff here.
 
Sadly, as soon as you add underwater viewing to a polar bear exhibit (or any large mammal), the cost shoots way up. That (picture #6 in the set) and providing proper holding facilities are probably where most of the money went.
 
Forgive my stupidity - but why are the pools "heated"? I can see them being kept to just above freezing, but heated? Do the bears need hot tubs? :)
 
snowleopard said:
The $27 million price tag also includes a new restaurant, gift shop, and education center that looks into both the bison and bear yards. The 5 bears (2 grizzly and 3 polar) will rotate between the 3 different yards, each of which is around 9,000 sq. ft. in size.

Daily Herald | Brookfield Zoo's new Wilderness exhibit will give bears room to roam
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The second photo in that article is indeed a bear habitat, and to me this looks very good. The bears will have a total of 27,000 square feet of outdoor habitat to explore, and the fact that they are rotated through it makes it more interesting for them. The bears will actually have more than double the land to explore than the bears in the world-class Northern Trail at WPZ.

Another smart thing Brookfield did was give the exhibits time to grow in. That is why they aren't opening it until May even though it is pretty much done. This seems to me like it will be a great new exhibit for bears and visitors alike.
 
BlackRhino said:
The second photo in that article is indeed a bear habitat, and to me this looks very good. The bears will have a total of 27,000 square feet of outdoor habitat to explore, and the fact that they are rotated through it makes it more interesting for them. The bears will actually have more than double the land to explore than the bears in the world-class Northern Trail at WPZ.

Another smart thing Brookfield did was give the exhibits time to grow in. That is why they aren't opening it until May even though it is pretty much done. This seems to me like it will be a great new exhibit for bears and visitors alike.[/QUOTE

I guarantee you the second photo IS NOT one of the bear exhibits, but is the bison range. Clues: it is clearly much bigger than 9000 square feet, it has a "dust bath" area; it has rip-rap edges to retain the slope and discourage bison walking into the ditches at the edge; and the rockwork in the rear is not nearly tall enough to contain bears. The three bear spaces are all grottoes, surrounded by tall concrete walls.

I'm not sure your logic is correct as to available space--clearly the bears will never have simultaneous access to all three areas, so at any given time they will only have 9000 square feet available to them.

The long growing-in period is the right way to go
Click to expand...
 
reduakari said:
BlackRhino said:
The second photo in that article is indeed a bear habitat, and to me this looks very good. The bears will have a total of 27,000 square feet of outdoor habitat to explore, and the fact that they are rotated through it makes it more interesting for them. The bears will actually have more than double the land to explore than the bears in the world-class Northern Trail at WPZ.

Another smart thing Brookfield did was give the exhibits time to grow in. That is why they aren't opening it until May even though it is pretty much done. This seems to me like it will be a great new exhibit for bears and visitors alike.[/QUOTE

I guarantee you the second photo IS NOT one of the bear exhibits, but is the bison range. Clues: it is clearly much bigger than 9000 square feet, it has a "dust bath" area; it has rip-rap edges to retain the slope and discourage bison walking into the ditches at the edge; and the rockwork in the rear is not nearly tall enough to contain bears. The three bear spaces are all grottoes, surrounded by tall concrete walls.

I'm not sure your logic is correct as to available space--clearly the bears will never have simultaneous access to all three areas, so at any given time they will only have 9000 square feet available to them.

The long growing-in period is the right way to go
Click to expand...

I am sorry, but is it possible for an exhibit that 9000 square feet to be a grotto? Almost no grottos are more than 5000 square feet, and you are way too judgmental of this exhibit just having seen a tiny photograph. Truthfully, its much more enriching for the bears to be rotated through three 9,000 square foot exhibits than have one 27,000 square foot one, so I think this way is actually a better outcome.
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