Polar Bears in Dublin Zoo?

alexa5x5

Just wondering what happened to the Polar bears that where in Dublin Zoo. Just saw an article about polar bear and it reminded me of the poor, probably mentally disturbed bears I saw in Dublin zoo when I was a kid. In fact it’s the reason I’ve never been in a zoo since...it was just to fcuking sad to watch.
Where they moved? Hopefully relocated to somewhere much better than the pathetic surrounding I saw them in.

phasers

I think they were sent to Hungary a few years ago, there's no Polar Bears in the zoo anymore thankfully. Their enclosure was horrible, even when I was really young I thought it was cruel.

Duggy747

They melted.














Bloody global warming.

Sanjuro

In college, we used to go to the zoo once a month to draw the animals. (I went to college in Ms. Primrose's School for Toddlers). There was this one polar bear that stood in the exact same spot, just rocking it's head back and forth, back and forth. It was really quite depressing. Hopefully they've been moved to somewhere that wont distress the animals quite so much.

mloc123

Best Polar bears can be found in the Prague Zoo... might be a bit of a trip to see them tho

stovelid

phasers wrote: »

I think they were sent to Hungary a few years ago, there's no Polar Bears in the zoo anymore thankfully. Their enclosure was horrible, even when I was really young I thought it was cruel.

They should have just learned to go with the floe...

alexa5x5

mloc123 wrote: »

Best Polar bears can be found in the Prague Zoo... might be a bit of a trip to see them tho

Really? Just googled that and I can’t find any info....hopefully that’s where they are because apparently its one of the best (in terms of quality of life) zoo's in the world. Still wouldn’t go to a zoo though, that image of the polar bears rocking back and forth has stayed with me too much.

FatherLen

a polar bear in edinburgh zoo choked to death on a happy meal toy some kid threw in a few years back :eek:

they still have some and its not depressing to see them they have massive tanks(water not military) and whatnot.

phasers

alexa5x5 wrote: »

Really? Just googled that and I can’t find any info....hopefully that’s where they are because apparently its one of the best (in terms of quality of life) zoo's in the world. Still wouldn’t go to a zoo though, that image of the polar bears rocking back and forth has stayed with me too much.

I totally get that, the poor Polar Bears used to haunt me too.


Dublin zoo has improved vastly in recent years in fairness, enclosures have gotten much bigger (in fact the penguins are getting a new one soon I think) and most animals are more stimulated and have areas they can go away from the public

average_runner

Dublin Zoo is actaully quiet amazing now, well worth a visit. Very different to what it was 30 years ago

Sid_Justice

It's generally accepted that Polar Bears are extremely unsuitable for Zoo confinement. Dublin Zoo was much much much too small for them so they were sold to a Zoo in Hungary I believe which had a bigger facility.

If you want to observe Polar bears I genuinely think the Attenborough series on Planet Earth (and the o thers) are the best way to do this.

January

Yeah except for the poor old depressed Arctic Fox...

alexa5x5

phasers wrote: »

I totally get that, the poor Polar Bears used to haunt me too.


Dublin zoo has improved vastly in recent years in fairness, enclosures have gotten much bigger (in fact the penguins are getting a new one soon I think) and most animals are more stimulated and have areas they can go away from the public

During my search for the polar bears I came across an article that said that 11 Penguins died a couple of years ago from food poisoning…and of course we all heard about the guys that stole a penguin from its enclosure earlier in the year. Standards haven’t improved for everyone evidently.
I do understand they have tried to improve the enclosures for most of the animals so hopefully they'll get around to the Penguines soon.

mloc123

alexa5x5 wrote: »

Really? Just googled that and I can’t find any info....hopefully that’s where they are because apparently its one of the best (in terms of quality of life) zoo's in the world. Still wouldn’t go to a zoo though, that image of the polar bears rocking back and forth has stayed with me too much.

We were there about 3/4 years ago, temp was -5c at the time... they seemed to enjoy sliding around on the frozen over water.

Edit: Just to say, these were not the ones from Dublin Zoo.

raah!

I was only ever there once, and the memory or those poor bears performing their insane tortured rituals of repeatedly hitting the floor with their paws has stuck with me ever since. I don't remember anything else from my visit to dublin that time. Other than the tormented bears.

The bear was just repeating the same pattern of jumping and slapping his fore-paws on the floor.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

I feckin' knew I saw Polar bears at Dublin Zoo!!!

I was asking my mam about them a while ago, and she swore it was panda's that were visiting from some other zoo!!

I was only about 3 at the time, but I have a vivid memory of one bear sitting slouched over himself looking miserable and scruffy and the pool of water was a manky brown colour.

Seems all Irish children of a certain age were traumatised by these bears.

Dublin zoo has improved immensely over the last few years, but really no animals should be in a zoo anymore. I wouldn't even mind if the ones that are were used to educate people on the plight of their species, but they're not.

Duiske

Only polar bears I have seen were in central park zoo, NY. Awesome animals, and to be honest these ones seemed very well treated. It was a scorching hot day and they were leaping off rocks and landing on huge rubber balls in the water. Hilarious it was, and they were having a great time.


Still, i do get peoples point that maybe zoo's should not even exist. But the fact is they are here for the forseeable, so we can just hope they are run properly, which the one in ny certainly appeared to be.

ronnie3585

raah! wrote: »

I was only ever there once, and the memory or those poor bears performing their insane tortured rituals of repeatedly hitting the floor with their paws has stuck with me ever since. I don't remember anything else from my visit to dublin that time. Other than the tormented bears.

The bear was just repeating the same pattern of jumping and slapping his fore-paws on the floor.

I'm the same.

I've only ever visited the zoo once and my only memory of that day, about twenty years ago, was of the poor tormented polar bears. I can still remember exactly what they looked like with one of them constantly swimming back and forth in the tiny pool with the filthy brown water.

Poor guys.

Awful_Bliss

Any of ye see the recent programme about the Arctic with the polar bear stranded on the block of ice in the middle of the sea? He had to wait even longer for the hunting season because it takes longer for the sea to freeze. They're depressed no matter where they are. But still, I'd prefer to see them out there than in their former enclosure in Dublin Zoo. Who remembers the elephant enclosure. Pitiful size with only clay.

Pal

Just before you reached the polar bears, there was a pathetic enclosure with American black bears.

These were tormented creatures too but didn't show quite as many stir crazy habits as their unfortunate Arctic cousins. Incidentally, I recall that the polar bears weren't very white. Sad, dirty and grey looking. What on earth were the custodians of Dublin Zoo thinking. Or were they even thinking at all.


Anyways, I haven't been in many years. Does anybody know if there are any bears at all in the zoo today ?

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

Dublin zoo has improved immensely over the last few years, but really no animals should be in a zoo anymore. I wouldn't even mind if the ones that are were used to educate people on the plight of their species, but they're not.

I was at a zoo a while back that had a lot of "this animal is endangered in the wild" signs. i think the zoos can be useful, but only if the animals are in very big enclosures with privacy areas etc

Burky126

A couple of years back when I went to the zoo as part of college,the subject came up about polar bears at Dublin Zoo.From what I have heard there was apparently an incident were one of the bears became enraged and broke the glass.The zoo staff had to contain it and that was that.The enclosure is now where the gorillas are situated.

Not sure if this is any way true but there ya go!