No more polar bears for tropical Singapore Zoo

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No more polar bears for tropical Singapore Zoo

Thu Sep 7, 2006

Reuters Science News

 

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - The Singapore Zoo is looking for

a new home for its male polar bear and will no longer

bring animals from the North or South Poles to

tropical Singapore, an official said.

 

Zoo director Fanny Lai told Reuters on Thursday that

Inuka, a 16-year-old polar bear born in Singapore Zoo,

will be moved to a zoo in a temperate climate and that

Singapore has told the Rostock Zoo in Germany -- which

keeps track of all captive polar bears in the world --

that Inuka is available for transfer.

 

She denied the planned move was in response to a local

animal rights group's campaign " What's a Polar Bear

Doing in The Tropics? " , adding that the Singapore zoo

had decided to focus on being a rainforest zoo.

 

" You can't keep an Arctic animal in an open-air

enclosure in the tropics, " Animal Concerns Research

and Education Society president Louis Ng told Reuters.

The zoo said the bears have an air-conditioned den and

misting fans.

 

Inuka, the first polar bear born in the tropics, will

only be moved after the death of his 29-year-old

mother Sheba, who will not be moved because she is too

old. Polar bears in captivity have an average life

span of 25 years.

 

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=scienceNews & storyID=2006-09-\

07T110128Z_01_SIN79822_RTRUKOC_0_US-ENVIRONMENT-SINGAPORE-BEAR.xml & WTmodLoc=News\

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Rostock Zoo:(In German)

 

http://www.zoo-rostock.de/

 

 

 

 

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