Lisbon Zoo Circa 1978 - Brown Bear

Photo taken by my dad in the late 1970s.

These bear exhibits are still in use for some reason.

That's what you call archaic.

Anything known about the subspecies/local form of brown bear shown in the picture?

This is indeed a bad bear enclosure. I visited Lisbon Zoo in 1997 and then it was still in use. They still had Polar Bears then in an even more miserable looking enclosure but they left the following year. However I'm very pleased to see the many changes that have taken place at Lisbon Zoo in the 13 years since I was there.

PeGe, I wish I knew, those are my dad's photos. In 1978 I was not even born! This particular bear is looking bad but it seems to be large so I'm guessing it was not one from the Pyrenees as they are small, not to mention almost extinct. I guess from somewhere in Eastern Europe?

Did you notice the black bears in the next enclosure, behind the bars? I wonder if they were Asiatic Black or American Black?

Baldur said:

Did you notice the black bears in the next enclosure, behind the bars? I wonder if they were Asiatic Black or American Black?

Click to expand...

If I remember correctly they were American Black, even tought their profile in these pics look like Asian

LZ still has 3 browns and I'm not sure if there's any black on off-show ...

It used to have Asiatic black bears too. Nowadays the enclosure is still in use, but it was strongly renovated and altered.