Zoom Erlebnis Gelsenkirchen - July 2008

HI F, what are we looking at here?

This is a general view of Kodiak bears enclosure.

The Kodiaks live in the first enclosure. Here live the sibirian brown-bears.

The artificial rocks are looking very cheap..By they way, they have to do a lot of repair works on them, altough they are just three years old....

Lovely waterfall in the background--how intensely stupid

There is no waterfall, just the wall. The only waterfall is right behind the photgrafer.

Animal said:

The Kodiaks live in the first enclosure. Here live the sibirian brown-bears.

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Hi, the question below I addressed to "eagle" - but you also wrote about Siberian Brown Bears - so I hope you also can tell me more!!!

I am not such a big specialist to tell from the photo if this is Siberian brown bear (U.arctos collaris) or Kodiak brown bear (U.arctos middendorffi). Honestly these two look for me like Kodiak !!! I checked all my materials, such as the guide book, leaflets, all my photos taken during my last year visit, and also official web site of Zoom Erlebniswelt - and I was not able to find any single word about Siberian Brown Bears. And of course I am quite sure that during my visit in July 2008 there were only Kodiak bears there. This photo, as it is stated above, was taken only in April 2009. Well you are living in Dortmund so it is really very close to Gelsenkirchen and you can be there very frequent visitors. Well, anyway please be so kind to write me more and to convince me that those are U.arctos collaris !!!!!

Animal said:

There is no waterfall, just the wall. The only waterfall is right behind the photgrafer.

Click to expand...

Oh, that white streak coming from the top of the pinnacle of fake rock in the background looks like a waterfall. Glad to hear it isn't!

While the rockwork looks pretty fake, overall the brown bear and polar bear exhibits look really nice.

@fanaloka:
The Sibirian Brownbears (1,1) were imported from Hagenbeck 2007 (out of russia) and moved 2009 to the ZOOM. They are pure Ursus arctos beringianus.
In the other enclosure lives the Kodiaks (Buffy 1,0 from Hagenbeck and Brenda 0,1 from Sofia).

While this may be The Holy Grail of Fake Rock Zoos, I must confess that I absolutely love Zoom Erlebniswelt! Big, generous enclosures for the animals, most of them very nicely furnished. I especially like the bear enclosures.