Chester Zoo Old Polar Bear Enclosure

[ZooChap]

Hi everyone,

I know the Polar Bears used to be in the Europe on the Edge enclosure but my girlfriend is convinced they were once in the area where the Noah and the four winds statue is. Please settle the argument. Is she correct?

 

[Paix]

Just for people who dont know, this is Chester Zoo here.

 

[ZooChap]

Yes, sorry, I am talking about Chester Zoo. Back in the days when they had Polar bears.

 

[gentle lemur]

The sunken area around that statue has never held animals, as far as I can remember - there is an old thread about it somewhere. The other bear enclosures were a little bit further along, where the hornbill aviary and the kids playground are now. There is still a little bit of masonry left among the shrubs beside the aviary.

Alan

 

[SMR]

I know the Polar Bears used to be in the Europe on the Edge enclosure but my girlfriend is convinced they were once in the area where the Noah and the four winds statue is. Please settle the argument. Is she correct?

Your girlfriend is correct. There were two bear pits roughly opposite the giant otter pool in the area where the Chinese Aviary and Fun Ark are today. The northerly one held polar bears and the southerly one brown bears. They were opened in 1945 and the bears moved from their previous homes in the zoo. The enclosure that is now the Europe on the Edge aviary was built in the 1950s, but the bear pits remained until the 1970s. As Alan mentioned, you can still see some of their ramparts in the bushes behind the Fun Ark.

What is now the Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Garden wasn't sunken until it was constructed in 1976/77 and the area did hold animals before then, various ungulates if memory serves.