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Big Bears
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Grizzly bear
©WCS/J.Maher
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Surrounding a high ridge of natural rock and just up a path from the Himalayan Highlands are the Zoo’s grizzly and polar bears.
Our trio of grizzly bears—Archie, Betty, and Veronica—came to us from Wyoming and Montana as part of a rescue effort in 1995. The bears had been encroaching on human habitat—a problem that leads to conflicts in places throughout the world where animals and people share their turf. Since being rehabilitated at the zoo, the grizzly bears have come a long way. In the summertime, you can watch them splash about with specially designed pool toys in two swimming holes. In the fall, they make comfy dens out of great piles of leaves, and come wintertime, they enjoy playing in the white stuff.
Polar bears are the most aquatic of all the bear species. In the wild, they swim between ice floes to hunt seals underneath the sea ice. A blubber layer up to four and a half inches thick protects them from the cold water. There is no shortage of swim time here are the zoo, either. Our charismatic polar bears love a dip at any time of the year—especially when there is a fishsicle (frozen fish treat) to catch.
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