Fudge the European (or Syrian?) brown bear at Dartmoor Zoo, 31 July 2009

The attached information sign says that she arrived at Dartmoor in 1981.

johnstoni said:

Someone on a london zoo thread has suggested this was a Syrian brown bear that came from London when the Mappin Terraces closed in 1985. Can anyone confirm this?

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The cage label photo'd here by MhAle says she was born at London so there is near enough your answer I think.

They don't need to cut her claws(!!), all brown bears have long claws for raking over boulders, fishing etc, they use them like almost like we use our hands. So its a bit like cutting a person's fingers off! They use the word 'types' of bears- not very zoological...

Agree that types is a poor choice of words. It says she'd be the oldest Syrian brown bear in the country, which other collections have Syrian brown bears in the UK?

Shirokuma said:

It says she'd be the oldest Syrian brown bear in the country, which other collections have Syrian brown bears in the UK?

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None that I know of, I think she's the only one and has been for a long time.

The last I saw of this subspecies(race?) were in Australian zoos.

I can't think of any others in Britain. There's a few on the continent - last place I saw one was Ostrava in May.

I've seen film of a Syrian bear in the wild- its pale color perfectly matched the barren desert landscape it was in. Nature can be very clever....

The sign is interesting, thanks Mhale, as it shows she left London a lot earlier than when the Mappins were emptied (although I'm not 100% sure about the records Ben Mee would have inherited from the previous owner).

all the zoos in Israel have syrian brown bears and i've seen a few in Europe, but not many (we have 3 females and one (half syrian) male)

i would like to know where did you saw the movie of the syrian brown bear in the wild?

I have vague memories from 'Zoo Time' programmes with Desmond Morris that the pair of Syrian Bears on the Mappin Terraces bred regularly . Presumably their cubs were distributed amongst UK zoos - were the brown bears that were at Colchester Syrians ?
I wonder if Fudge is now the last survivor .

I only remember the last Colchester female being a Syrian Brown, I'm not sure if the others were.