I have some underwater shots of the polar bears swimming, but both bears did the exact same, stereotypical water routine over and over again for the entire 20 minutes that my wife and I stood there watching them. Their pool is actually of a decent size, but the land area is brutal. Many of the Lincoln Park Zoo exhibits are quite disappointing, but they do have a fairly new, terrific great ape complex.
Yes, not acceptable in any way - especially the lack of soft substrate, but the one positive aspect would be the size of the pool. Even though the photo is taken with a wide angle lens, it still looks pretty large compared to many pools in other grottoes.
Other polar bear exhibits are much worse but this certainly isn't one to be proud of. The pool is nice but the land area is tiny with no real substrate for the bears - i often wonder why zoos such as lincoln park don't just move the polar bears out and get seals or something in their place. Then, when the money to build a new exhibit becomes available get the bears back; it's much kinder to the animals and makes the zoo look better.
On the ape complex, its posted on zoolex although i haven't worked out how to do links yet.
Obviously if the bears were exhibiting the stereotypical behavior of swimming the exact pattern, then the exhibit is not adequate enough and adjustments need to be made.
On the thread "North America's Polar Bear Exhibits" I ranked this particular enclosure in the top 5 worst polar bear habitats. The land area is far too small for such large animals.
