@GiratinaIsGod - I have seen this comment pop up quite a bit over the years, but now after living in San Diego for a year, I think people have a preconceived notion about what San Diego’s climate is like that isn’t quite accurate. San Diego, itself, is very much a coastal city. The proximity to the cold waters of the Pacific Ocean creates a pretty stable, pretty mild climate all year round. Yes, we might not get the below freezing winters that northern facilities get, but we also are not getting the 90 to 100+ degree Fahrenheit summers with chokingly high humidity, either. In the city center of San Diego, we rarely made it into the 80s this past summer. Do the colder winters that bears at facilities in the Midwest (where I have also personally lived) get to experience make up for the sweltering summers they then have to endure later in the year? The San Diego Zoo also has climate control features for the bears built into this exhibit with a chilled pool and rock features, an air-conditioned bedroom, and a permanent snow machine that produces snow in the exhibit daily.
