Wow, I thought every exhibit at San Diego looked lively, this sure doesn't. Where is the grass? The trees? Come on San Diego, you guys know you can do better. This exhibit is too small, especially for a bear on top of that.
While we found the range of animals at San Diego Zoo to be very impressive, and many of the newer exhibits are very well done ... we also found that there are quite a few older exhibits, which are not quite up to the standard we expected of such a highly acclaimed zoo (but I have no doubt they will eventually redevelop and improve them).
This exhibit was redone for two orphan grizzly bears. The exhibit now has a lot of dirt instead of concrete and some grass, but the size it's still the same.
The exhibit currently looks much more naturalistic, as it has been extensively renovated. At the same time, these canyon grottoes are easily the weakest section of the zoo and will hopefully be remodeled or bulldozed in the future.
Spanky and Sheena used to have access to both sides of that grotto. Now they've got the grizzly brothers on one side and blackie the Manchurian brown bear on the other.
While the grottos are very naturalistic with substrate and trees for scratching and climbing, they are far too small. When I ventured down into bear canyon two weeks ago I was very happy to find none of the bears pacing though and all actively engaged in some sort of activity.
@GFgomez some time ago, I don't recall exactly when. I have been able to deduce that he was 24 years old in 2008... so it was probably quite a long time ago.
