Roger Williams Park Zoo Long Awaited Polar Bear Exhibit Canceled

That is terribly disappointing, and now the zoo better change its logo!
 
Is it a problem that the zoo is going out of polar bears/not bringing in polar bears?

I don't know what the exhibit for them was like, but the zoo have obviously made the decision that to keep the species, they need to build a new enclosure - they can't afford it, so they'll not have polar bears. Makes sense, better than keeping them in an enclosure deemed inadequate is it not?

A handful of zoos in the UK have gone/are going out of pinnipeds as the cost to bring the enclosures up to standard are deemed too expensive to build/maintain. Yes people complained, but for animal welfare reasons it had to be done.

Some of the comments sound quite ignorant, saying that the zoo should keep polar bears because they're interesting, and that species like bald eagle are boring as they can see them in the wild. Not the way forward in my opinion, it's obvious that some of the commentors believe that entertainment in zoos comes first, not education/conservation and even animal welfare. It is this attitude across the world that stops zoos from being what they could - because the first sign of an ABC species disappearing and nobody bothers to visit anymore. All animals are equal, and people should be just as happy to see a species like a bald eagle or a moose as they are to see a polar bear.

[out of interest, would anybody having seen the enclosure in person say it is acceptable for the species? I'm basing all of this on the idea that the zoo believes they need a new enclosure to keep them well.
 
@Javan Rhino: An excellent response! Roger Williams Park Zoo used to be famous for its polar bears, even though the animals were in an old-fashioned grotto. I commented on the enclosure in the ZooChat gallery today, as it is now a bald eagle habitat. I totally support a zoo not having bears at all if the establishment cannot build an adequate exhibit, and at $15-20 million there could have been an outstanding bear exhibit constructed. The disappointment stems from the fact that the new exhibit had been highly anticipated for years, and for everything to be discarded for economic reasons is sad to see. But if the zoo simply cannot come up with the money for an exhibit of an extremely high standard then that is fair enough and there are a lot of other potential additions in the future.
 
I'm sure they're planning to add tigers to the zoo. Maybe either Bengal or Siberian. Well, we're not sure yet.
 
snowleopard said:
@Javan Rhino: An excellent response! Roger Williams Park Zoo used to be famous for its polar bears, even though the animals were in an old-fashioned grotto. I commented on the enclosure in the ZooChat gallery today, as it is now a bald eagle habitat. I totally support a zoo not having bears at all if the establishment cannot build an adequate exhibit, and at $15-20 million there could have been an outstanding bear exhibit constructed. The disappointment stems from the fact that the new exhibit had been highly anticipated for years, and for everything to be discarded for economic reasons is sad to see. But if the zoo simply cannot come up with the money for an exhibit of an extremely high standard then that is fair enough and there are a lot of other potential additions in the future.
Click to expand...

Thanks for clearing that up snowleopard, with a knowledge of the background it does make sense that people would be upset.

Obviously Chester faced a similar situation in the last year or two with having to postpone plans for Heart of Africa due to a change in government meaning that the funding was no longer available with the Regional Development Agencies.

My main question now though is that do you need to spend $15-20 million for a polar bear exhibit? Highland Wildlife Park built theres for £300,000 [of course, there was a lot of effort put in by the army, as far as I'm aware free of charge, to help build it]. However, the exhibit is effective and very naturalistic - it is essentially 4 acres of actual tundra, as opposed to mock rock/fake snow and ice and crystalline blue water. It is a cracking example of how a zoo can set up exhibits that work well for cheaper than expected.
 
I'm strongly in favour of rethinking how zoos exhibit polar bears. I have no doubt that a tundra inspired paddock could be a more viable option for many zoos, not just cold climate parks in rural areas than the hugely expensive proposals so well described by Javan Rhino.
 
High humidity seems to be a bigger problem for polar bears than high temperature. When Roger Williams decided to close their exhibit, they sent their last bear to my zoo in Tucson. She had a skin condition from the humidity of Rhode Island (it is humid throughout the eastern half of the U.S.). Within a few months in the dry Arizona air, her skin looked much better. She has now been sent to Pittsburgh for breeding and we received a polar bear from Sea World Orlando with similar problems which we are hoping to remedy.

Not that I think our exhibit is very good (it is not) nor do I think it is ideal to have them in the Arizona desert. Just making the point that a simple northern/southern zoo delineation for polar bears may not be sufficient. East/west might actually make more sense from a welfare standpoint (keeping them primarily in the west).
 
21st century Polar Bear exhibits certainly vary in size,design and cost.Here are some Polar Bear exhibits opened since the turn of the century and their cost.

00-Toledo Zoo-Arctic Encounter -8.7 mil
00-Cincinnatti Zoo-Lords of the Arctic-2.75 mil
01-Detroit Zoo-Arctic Ring of Life -14.9 mil
06- Pittsburgh Zoo-Waters Edge-12.5 mil
06-Memphis Zoo-Northwest Passage 23 mil
10-Columbus Zoo-Polar Frontier 20 mil
10-Brookfield Zoo (Chicago)-Great Bear Wilderness-27.3 mil
10-Kansas City Zoo-Polar Bear Passage-10 mil
11-Louisville Zoo-Glacier Run-25 mil

We have visited all of these Polar Bear exhibits and certainly some are better than others.However one thing they all have in common is that they all have surpassed the old grotto style of many zoos.We certainly beleive that these grottos must become a thing of the past for Polar Bears.

Utahs Hogle Zoo is set to open Rocky Shores this June.

Buffalo Zoo and St. Louis Zoo have plans for new Polar Bear exhibits.

Team Tapir
 
Aesthetically they may not be grottoes but I do question if many of these are a serious break with that tradition. I think polar bears should be exhibited more like big cats or ungulates with a big paddock with a pond. Underwater viewing would be nice if they can afford it but I think somewhere like the Scandinavian Animal Park in Denmark offers just as good an encounter with polar bears that could be replicated without too much difficulty and none of the expense of sparkling blue swimming pools and masses of sculptured rock.
 
Before reading the Team Tapir post, I had no idea there were so many large scale, impressive polar bear exhibits. Now I am more embarassed than ever about the lousy exhibit at my zoo.
 
Now that they have brought takins, red river hogs, and king vultures to the zoo, all they're still getting are poisonous snakes, vampire bats, moose, more monkeys, a walk-through lorikeet exhibit, and tigers.
 
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