Historic Bear Mountain - Grizzly Bear

This was the first simulated concrete rockwork grotto exhibit built in the United States, in 1918.

I feel sorry for that grizzly in its concrete world, and a few dead logs and a puny pool don't make life much more pleasant than what can be seen in this photo.

There were a pair of them in there when I visited, one was splashing alot in the pool. The other shown here liked to scratch its back on the rockwork while standing up.

This reminds me of the Manchurian Brown Bear grotto at the San Diego Zoo.

Melbourne's looks fantastic compared to this.

I agree Pat. The Denver Zoo has had 91 years to come up with a better bear exhibit and we are all still waiting...

Are there any good examples of more appropriate reuse of old bear grottoes? Other than the Coatis next door to this one. I am having a hard time thinking of any. Maybe filling in the moat and redesigning for access for visitors into the grotto space would be a good technique of keeping the historic rockwork, while establishing a series of more intimate exhibits in the middle for meerkats, iguanas, etc...species that can be contained in low walled exhibits created in the former grotto floor space.

geomorph said:

Are there any good examples of more appropriate reuse of old bear grottoes? Other than the Coatis next door to this one. I am having a hard time thinking of any. Maybe filling in the moat and redesigning for access for visitors into the grotto space would be a good technique of keeping the historic rockwork, while establishing a series of more intimate exhibits in the middle for meerkats, iguanas, etc...species that can be contained in low walled exhibits created in the former grotto floor space.

Click to expand...

Woodland Park has reused original bear and lion grottos as components of much better gorilla, lion and Asian bear exhibits.

St. Louis creatively re-used an old bear grotto as a Humbolt Penguin exhibit

Blackduiker

Los Angeles, along with dozens of other zoos copied this design when they built their bear grottos at the old Griffith Park Zoo. Remnants of them can still be seen at the former zoo site. I remember viewing Grizzly and Polar Bears there many times as a child.

These exhibits are very outdated but for this VERY old grizzly (Hum) , I think it is suitable for her since her years are limited and she is always sleeping. Most of the time she will only want to go out in the morning and evening when the visitors have not came through. This would also go for the other VERY old Asian Black Bears that live right next to them in another grotto. The only thing they do any more is sleep, eat, sun bathe, and occasionally climb a bare tree if they have the energy. One of the biggest problems with this exhibit is the younger pair of grizzlies and that this is one of they first exhibits known to Denver Zoo.