At What Cost Conservation? Polar Bears in Tropical Zoos.

Polar bears, think of polar bears and no doubt snow will spring to mind, wide vast land with snow, or at least, during the warmer months, grass. You don’t expect to see concrete floors and cramped enclosures. Sadly, for many polar bears in zoos, this is the case.

There are polar bears in zoos all over the world. In the UK, the last polar bear,Mercedes, was moved to a larger enclosure to live out the rest of her years in a slightly colder climate.

Meanwhile, over in Asia, the Singapore Zoo has been making the news. The polar bear enclosure has attracted criticism from local animal welfare charity, ACRES (Animal Concerns Research and Education Society). ACRES has been monitoring the polar bears plight since 2005, where they discovered that in the Singapore heat, of up to 32 degrees C, the bears have been showing signs of heat stress and the stereotypical behaviours observed in zoo animals that do not have enough space.

Singapore Zoo Bears. Source: www.acres.org.sg

In recent news, the Singapore Zoo has declared it will be making changes to the bear’s enclosure. They will be making the new enclosure 3.5 times bigger than the current one, it will be 1,400 sq m, considering a solitary bear’s home range can be a few hundred miles, the enclosure will fall short again. Not even considering that the mother and son relationship is completely unnatural, Inuka, the 18 year old male should have left home a long time ago.

The new enclosure will have soil so that the bears no longer will have to walk and rest on hard concrete, ideally it will be deep enough for them to dig down and make beds and dens.

At what cost will this enclosure be to the climate? Polar bears are arctic animals; even running in the freezing cold can cause them to overheat. So, in order to maintain an ideal temperature the zoo is making the new enclosure climate controlled. Imagine the financial and environmental cost to keep this running. Sure, the polar bears at the zoo may be cold, but what about their wild arctic cousins? Their ice caps are going to be melting, just to keep the two Singapore Zoo bears cool! Surely, it is better just to put the two bears on a plane and transport them to pastures cold?

The IUCN red list classifies polar bears as Vulnerable, listing the main threat to them as climate change, so while it is important to ensure that polar bears do not disappear completely, keeping them in an enclosure that contributes to climate change is irresponsible.