I read about this place breifly while I was in Vancouver and was going to go, but time didn't allow for it...As far as I can remember from the brochure, they were rescued and their enclosure is extremely large, is it not? At least 2 acres?
And they have wolves as well, retired film "stars". Someone told me that they once tried housing the wolves with the bears, is there any truth in that, or was I being strung along?
The two bears live near the peak of Grouse Mountain, in a fantastic exhibit that must be at least 2 acres. For quite some time the wolves were in an adjacent exhibit, and for a brief time the two species were mixed together. However, after a period of about two weeks one of the grizzlies killed a wolf...and that was the end of the mixed-species experiment!
Now the 4 wolves (including one that is completely black) live in a large grassy enclosure at the base of the mountain, which is unfortunately close to the main car park.
I just managed to find the website for grouse mountain and apparently the bear enclosure, when both sections are open, is a total of five acres! Impressive!
The wolf enclosure is 2.5 acres. You're right, it is unfortunate that it's close to the parking lot... you'd think with so much space they'd have put it a bit farther away...But I guess having so much space to get away from it would help, and they're lucky to have ended up at such a naturalistic, spacious facility...I imagine, as film wolves, they probably hadn't known such space prior to arriving there!
And thanks for confirming the mixed species experiment, that must have been a bad day for everyone involved.
Thanks for checking out the size...5 acres is awesome!! It's a tough enclosure to gauge the size of because it curves around into a large circle, and the visitor boardwalk actually cuts directly through the 5 acres. At one point the pair of grizzlies were directly underneath me as they headed to their various pools.
