Polar Frontier Construction, Polar Bear Exhibit

Snowleopard will really appreciate this picture. From the plans the polar bear exhibit doesn\'t look that large. However the exhibit will extend as far as where the grass has not been removed, to the very right under the church cross, as seen from the photo. The enclosure will be over an acre ( I think 50,000 sq. ft.) and will feature a 167,000 gallon pool, a beach, and a tundra region with ice, snow, rock, and grass.

Cheers for the photo! Having a pair of one-acre yards for the Kodiak and polar bears is great to see, and while the enclosures will not be enormous they will still be much larger than many other bear exhibits at other zoos. If I remember correctly you once said that the zoo will combine the two bear habitats in the North American section to form a large enclosure for the black bears. Is that right? Toss in the brilliant sun bear habitat and the Columbus Zoo will become one of the very best zoos around for bears!

Yes, all the bear yards will be combined to make one or two Black Bear Yards. We also will have Spectacled Bears once we open Central/South America so we will exhibit 5 out of 8 bear species (we also will cover every continent they are found on)!

Really? Where's your European brown bear exhibit?

Brown Bear as a collective, we have brown bears that are native to the US but other subspecies are also found in Europe!

Oh, I thought you were saying you had a bear exhibit for every continent. Aren't polar bears found in Norway as well? Anyway, I was just givin' ya a hard time.

Ituri said:

Oh, I thought you were saying you had a bear exhibit for every continent. Aren't polar bears found in Norway as well? Anyway, I was just givin' ya a hard time.

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I know, and thats a very good point about polar bears. I wish we had a Europe region but again the fauna would be very similar to North America.

Very few US zoos have any fauna that is specifically European. There may be a few European red deer and wild boar out there, but not much else. I think Toronto still has chamois, San Diego has/had? roe deer but they were of the Siberian variety. I think a few zoos have had European red squirrels at one point, but not really enough for anyone to build a European exhibit. Not even many wisent anymore (just Toronto?)

Toronto currently chamois, wisent and barbary ape but there all being phased out