American Black Bear Exhibit - with badly pacing bears

July 29th, 2015.

This is animal abuse - a bear cannot function as a bear in a space like this.

Shirokuma said:

This is animal abuse - a bear cannot function as a bear in a space like this.

Click to expand...

I absolutely agree with you and it is shocking to see such an exhibit in this day and age. Spring River Park & Zoo is a free facility with zero legitimate entrance gates but many of the enclosures (American Black Bear, Cougar, Bobcat, Raccoon, Red Fox) are simply dreadful. I'm not sure if you can tell from this photo but the bear cement cage actually is on a clear slope and so all these two bears have is a steep cement pathway that they can walk up and down for the rest of their lives. It is depressing to think about...

Fortunately, the zoo is going to renovate the exhibit as per their master plan (see here:
https://roswell-nm.gov/DocumentCenter/View/3710/2018-Spring-River-Park-and-Zoo-Master-Plan) Seems pretty ambitious, and I wish them luck on it.

(I'm disappointed they didn't go with a theme of aliens visiting Earth for it, being Roswell)