Polar bear moves from Eindhoven Zoo Mierlo To animal park in Germany

Eindhoven Zoo-born polar bear Elva moved last Tuesday to Tiergarten Nuremberg in Germany. This was done as part of the European Management Program. Elva's move went well and she is currently exploring her new enclosure.

It means there are currently two polar bears living in Eindhoven Zoo: Elva's mother and the male who arrived last year.

In the wild, the animals stay with the mother until the age of three years, until the mother is mated again. From then on, the mother rejects her offspring. In Eindhoven Zoo, the polar bear female was not mated and therefore she had not yet disowned her daughter.

Threats

Things are going badly for polar bears in the wild. This has several causes, but global warming plays the biggest role. The animals feed on seals and, when the seals come up for air, catch them through the cracks in the ice. Because the sea ice is melting very quickly and therefore there are few wakes, it is becoming increasingly difficult for the polar bears to survive.

In addition, due to the disappearance of their habitat, they increasingly migrate to villages to find food. As a result, the polar bear regularly encounters humans and usually does not survive this collision.

European zoos are committed to creating a healthy reserve population. They do this through the European Management Program. The coordinator decides which animals are allowed to reproduce and which parks young animals are allowed to move to when they are of age to leave their mothers.

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