Polar bears and zoo's green contradiction

Straits Times Forum 1 Sep 10;

I REFER to the article ('Helping errant zoos do better'; Aug 23), which stated that 'the zoo, though, stopped short of granting the non-governmental organisation's request for the polar exhibit to be phased out'.

Ms Fanny Lai, chief executive officer of Wildlife Reserves Singapore (WRS), explained that 'one reason we keep polar bears is as an insurance in case something happens in the wild. We can't foresee the future, but it doesn't look positive for polar bears'.

In 2007, Singapore Zoo confirmed in a number of media articles that it will not bring any more polar bears into the country. Is the zoo reversing its decision again?

Disappointingly, WRS had already reversed a September 2006 decision to relocate Inuka the polar bear to a more temperate and appropriate climate.

Studies have shown that polar bears are poor candidates for captivity and Singapore's tropical climate is totally unsuitable for polar bears.

The Animal Concerns Research and Education Society (Acres) congratulates the zoo for building a larger and climate-controlled enclosure for the polar bears. Is this, however, contradictory to the zoo's message with regard to fighting global warming?

On the one hand, the zoo is creating awareness about the need to cut our carbon emissions to save the polar bear's habitat. But on the other, a large climate-controlled enclosure for the polar bears, 24 hours a day and 365 days a year, will undoubtedly contribute to global warming and to the demise of wild polar bears.

Acres hopes that WRS will indeed phase out the keeping of polar bears and focus on being a tropical zoo.

Louis Ng
Executive Director
Acres (Animal Concerns Research and Education Society)

Cooler home for zoo's polar bears
New enclosure will look and feel more like the Arctic
Jennani Durai 28 Aug 10;

THE Singapore Zoo's two resident polar bears will be ditching their tropical-environment enclosure for one that looks and feels more like the cold Arctic.

And the mother-and-son pair, Sheba and Inuka, will do this while staying put in sunny Singapore.

Their new home in the upcoming wildlife theme park River Safari will be climate-controlled to mimic the temperatures of the frozen north.

The $7 million enclosure, at 1,400 sq m, will be 31/2 times bigger than their current one.

'Ice rocks', blocks of ice to be made by a large freezer unit in the enclosure, will be stacked there for them to rest on. The bears will also have an ice cave to retreat to, while the soil surfaces, trees, pools and streams will be just like in the Arctic.

The bears will be the highlight of the Frozen Tundra exhibit in the $180 million River Safari theme park, which is due to open in 2012 on 12ha of land between the zoo and the Night Safari.

The exhibit will be designed to educate the public on the environmental threats facing glaciers and semi-frozen fresh-water ecosystems.

Visitors will be able to view Sheba, 33, and Inuka, 19, at three heights, including an underwater view provided by 'windows' cut through rock.

To help with the building of the new enclosure, which will be near the bears' current enclosure, the zoo's polar bear exhibit will close on Monday.

Mr Biswajit Guha, the director of zoology, said sound-proofing will be installed so the bears will be unaffected by the din from the rotary piling used in the construction.

These changes come not a day too soon for animal welfare group Animal Concerns Research and Education Society (Acres) which has, since 2007, raised concerns about the polar bears' living environment being too small and too tropical - unlike the natural environment the pair of bred-in-captivity bears were meant to live in.

Back in 2007, Acres' executive director Louis Ng had urged the zoo to 'consider drastically improving the living conditions and raising them to meet international standards'.

The bears' current enclosure has an air-conditioned den out of public view, but a part of it, including the pool, is open-air so visitors can see them.

Mr Ng told The Straits Times yesterday: 'It must be crazy for the polar bears. I'm not used to the heat in Singapore, let alone those arctic animals.'

Acres also pointed out that the enclosure lacked material that the bears could gather to make day beds or dry their fur on, and private areas where they could take a break from gawking visitors.

The bears were showing signs of heat stress and were pacing and swimming in circles, which Acres said were behaviours linked to poor living conditions.

Mr Ng agreed that the new habitat addressed the concerns raised, but it is still his hope that the zoo will do away with the polar bear exhibit.