The big bear twins are heading to Pittsburgh Zoo from Denver
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DENVER -- It is mid-week, mid-morning, and Koda and Nuka, twin 500-pound polar bears, are playfully bobbing around in a pond at the Denver Zoo's Northern Shores exhibit area, making the pond look small and attracting a large, cute-cooing crowd of preschoolers, parents and grandparents.
David Parsons, Denver ZooNuka will likely be the star attraction at Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium's new Water's Edge exhibit along with his twin, Koda. The 500-pound polar bear brothers are moving here this month from the Denver Zoo.
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The bear brothers, just 11/2 years old, bat around a Pilates-sized rubber ball with their paddle-like paws for a while, dive underwater repeatedly, and push and wrestle like two sumo wrestlers. After the roughhousing, Koda -- or is it Nuka? -- gracefully rolls up onto and completely covers a Volkswagen-sized rock in the middle of the pond where he settles in for some sunning under a too-blue Colorado sky.
Nuka -- or Koda? -- takes the opportunity to swim over to an underwater window at the side of the pool where he blows bubbles and gnaws on a round rubber flotation ring the size of a small tractor tire, putting on a show for the three-deep crowd of kids jockeying for viewing space. Before long he is nosing the glass and licking at the small hands spread-palmed on the other side.
The burly bouncing bruins are the definition of charismatic mega-fauna, and they are soon on their way to Pittsburgh, where they will become the de-facto main attractions in the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium's new $12.5 million Water's Edge exhibit that will also house sea otters and walruses.
A 40-foot-long, one-of-its-kind glass tunnel under the walrus pool will be the architectural centerpiece of the Arctic installation, affording zoogoers an underwater view of the blubbery swimmers. But there hasn't been a walrus since the Beatles sang about one that could pull attention away from these playful polar bears, who will inhabit their own glass-walled ice cave.
Add that Pittsburgh zoogoers have gone without seeing polar bears since 1998, when the Highland Park facility's two females were sent to Detroit, and the stage is set for Koda and Nuka to become star attractions.
"Pittsburgh will get a thrill from these bears," said Lynn Kramer, a Pittsburgh-born veterinarian who is vice president for Biological Programs at the Denver Zoo, where he is in charge of 700 species and 4,000 animals. "We are going to miss them. They are more active than adult bears and therefore more entertaining for the public."
Amos Morris, the Pittsburgh Zoo's curator of mammals, said the polar boys are just what the zoo was looking for in its quest to re-establish an exhibit.
"We know the citizens of Pittsburgh have missed their polar bears and have been waiting for them to come back," Mr. Morris said. "To have the opportunity to get young bears who like to play and be active is the kind of situation you would seek out."
The Denver Zoo is the most successful polar bear breeding facility in North America. After opening its North Shores exhibit in 1988, the zoo began its breeding program in 1995 and over the last decade has had four litters of one or two bears.
Denver has six bears in its present exhibit, including the twins ticketed for Pittsburgh. It also has a 4-year-old polar bear on loan to the Memphis Zoo, which opened a new exhibit in April. The zoo needs to make room in its exhibit to accommodate its next breeding pair.
"These bears are being given to Pittsburgh on exhibit loan but we don't know if we'll ever get them back," Mr. Kramer said. "I know Pittsburgh would love to have a breeding pair eventually."
Mr. Morris said the new polar bear exhibit is designed to house a breeding pair and will have a holding capacity of five bears.
But whether Koda or Nuka will eventually get a girlfriend will depend on decisions made by the American Zoo and Aquarium Association's Species Survival Plan program, a 25-year-old cooperative population management and conservation program for selected species that aims to maintain healthy, self-sustaining animal populations that are genetically diverse.
"I liken it to computerized dating," Mr. Kramer said. "Each animal in a taxa, or related group of animals, is given a 'mean kinship number' based on their degree of genetic relatedness, then divided by sex and then sorted by proximity and health and matched up for possible mating."
There are now about 100 polar bears in North American zoos and the species survival plan's Taxon Advisory Group has established 110 as the target population for the bears in North American captivity. That requires between seven to 12 breedings a year.
An added consideration for maintaining the captive population is their dwindling numbers in the Arctic, where climate change has altered their habitat, delaying ice formation and reducing their ability to breed and hunt for food, primarily ringed seals.
"They need to be on ice floes to catch the seals that they survive on, but because of global warming it's taking six weeks longer for the ice to form thick enough to support the bears' weight," Mr. Kramer said. "As a result, they have gone for longer periods from spring until winter losing weight and at some juncture reach the point where they're too weak to swim out and hunt."
In December 2005 environmental groups sued the federal government to protect polar bears from extinction, and in February the Bush administration began a yearlong study. If they are eventually listed as endangered, the bears would be the first U.S. mammals officially deemed to be in danger of extinction because of global warming.
Scientists estimate the worldwide polar bear population at between 20,000 and 25,000, and some studies show they are getting skinnier and populations are in decline.
Koda, named after his parents Kavek and Voda, and Nuka, the Inuit word for "little brother," were born on Thanksgiving Day 2004, at the Denver Zoo. Both parents were also born in captivity. No wild polar bears are captured for zoos anymore. New blood lines for breeding purposes can come from zoos in Europe.
The Denver Zoo took Koda and Nuka off exhibit Friday to prepare them for their trip to Pittsburgh, planned for sometime next week. In Denver the bears will be tranquilized, put in large cages, then loaded onto a climate-controlled truck, specially designed for animal transport and operated by International Animal Exchange of Detroit. The cross-country trip of 1,450 miles will take approximately 30 hours, with two drivers alternating time behind the wheel.
"They are very experienced in moving marine mammals and do a lot of stopping to check the animals and make sure they are in good health," said Mr. Morris, who noted that there are contingency plans to divert the truck to other zoo facilities along the way should an animal health emergency develop.
Once the bears arrive in Pittsburgh they will be placed in quarantine for several weeks to allow them to acclimate to their new surroundings. The polar bear part of the Water's Edge exhibit will open in the first week of August. The walrus and otter sections of the exhibit are scheduled to open in April 2007.
Unlike the zoo's previous polar bear exhibit, which consisted of a pond surrounded by rough-hewn, pollution-blackened rocks, the new Water's Edge installation will emphasize a conservation message that includes how local actions affect global warming and its impact on Arctic habitats and animals.
"This is an opportunity to educate the community about how our decisions and culture are dramatically affecting these animals in the Arctic," Mr. Morris said. "Global warming is emerging as a major issue and this is a prime time for our new exhibit to help enlighten the community.
"We want to entertain you, but we are trying to teach you at the same time about the need to steward the planet."
David Parsons, Denver ZooKoda will be featured with his brother Nuka at Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium's new Water's Edge exhibit.
Click photo for larger image.
First Published June 7, 2006 12:00 am
