Who loves the cold?

[andrewducker]

I'd seen the polar bear at Edinburgh zoo a few times, and I was glad when they announced that they were moving it up to The Highland Wildlife Park, where it would have more space.

Of course, it's colder up there. And this winter it snowed like buggery. Making it an entirely happy bear - or as the BBC would have it a silly old polar bear.

I found this great photoset.

And this fantastic video. Polar Bears - both terrifying and cute.

Comments

[henriksdal.livejournal.com]

awww thanks for posting this Andy, Mercedes must have spent 25 years in that tiny pen at Edinburgh dreaming of the snow. Awwww.

[princealbert.livejournal.com]

We visited Mercedes today. Unfortunately she's exhibiting the same pacing she used to do at Edinburgh Zoo for the past few weeks. The general consensus between both sets of staff is she'll break out of it soon, and its an annual pattern she's set in. She does we were assured randomly stop pacing and has a swim, or a roll in the mud, as well as have a healthy appetite.

Her enclosure is massive compared to the space she had in Corstorphine, but for a migratory animal its always going to be tiny.

[andrewducker]

I'm glad she's slowly breaking out of that habit, and I hope the trend continues.

The lack of space is sadly always going to be an issue. There's not a lot they can do about that, is there?

[henriksdal.livejournal.com]

The charity I worked at in Greece had a sanctuary for bears liberated from being Dancing Bears - they had horrendous repetative behaviours, pacing, endlessly chewing their paws, even though they had huge and very enriching enclosures; only the bears that had been there several years were starting to lose them; I suspect Mercedes will take bloody years to break out of them

[likeneontubing.livejournal.com]

aswwww :D