Park in polar bear breeding plan

BBC News

More polar bears are to be introduced to the Highland Wildlife Park, when the UK’s only polar bear dies.

Mercedes, thought to be 27-years-old, was relocated from Edinburgh Zoo to the park near Kingussie last month. Polar bears can live into their early 30s.

Scotland’s Royal Zoological Society which owns the park, said two more will be brought in when Mercedes dies.

They will be brought together for the breeding season only, which replicates their natural behaviour in the wild.

It is hope that the pair will produce cubs.

Mercedes was rescued from her native Canada and brought to Scotland in 1984, after she was scheduled to be shot because she was roaming into a nearby town in search of food.

She was kept in Edinburgh Zoo, also owned by the RZSS, but this was criticised because of the size of the enclosure.

Mercedes in her new enclosure at the Highland Wildlife Park

Her new home extends over four acres of land regarded as more typical of the natural habitat of polar bears.

The RZSS said she has settled in there “extremely well”.

She has been on her own for 13 years, since the male polar bear she was paired with, Barney, passed away.

Solitary species

This is the natural state for the solitary species, according to the RZSS, who said Mercedes would remain on her own until she dies.

Douglas Richardson, from the Highland Wildlife Park, said: “Until recently, there was no real conservation need to keep polar bears in zoos as there was a healthy population in the wild and therefore RZSS had no definite plans to replace Mercedes after she died.

“However a shrinking polar ice cap and shortening polar ice season has pitched the polar bears to the forefront of conservation concern, so much so that key representatives of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s polar bear specialist group now feel that the modern zoo community has an increasingly important role to play.

“This will include keeping and breeding polar bears within our collections long-term.”

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