What's a Polar Bear Doing in the Tropics? - Animal Concerns ...

demonstrating species-appropriate behaviour can leave a lasting impressionin the minds of zoo visitors”. 84 In the “wonders of the wild” show, each“performance” is said to “highlight the animals’ natural behaviour in thewild”. 84On the Singapore Zoo website, the following statement is made: “At theSingapore Zoo we believe in maintaining our animals’ natural instincts andbehaviours through activities. Such activities help to deepen ourunderstanding towards them and even participate in the wonders of theirways!” 85However, this line of thinking apparently does not extend to the polar bearshows in which the polar bears perform several unnatural behaviours thatare totally inappropriate for the species.The polar bears are used in “token feeding” shows for the public three timesa day from Monday to Saturday and four times a day on Sundays and publicholidays. As documented as late as March 2006, during these shows bothInuka and Sheba are repeatedly required to demonstrate unnaturalbehaviours for the reward of a piece of food. Sheba is asked to “wave” tothe audience with her paws. Inuka is encouraged to splash around in thewater- a behaviour which is explained as being “his version of a bellydance”. Inuka is also told to stand on his hind legs on a boulder and ring abell suspended on a rope above the enclosure. After this he proceeds to hithis paws together at which point the presenter claims that he is “asking fora round of applause”.The educational benefit of watching a polar bear waving, ringing a bell,clapping his paws together or ‘belly dancing’ is obviously highlyquestionable. Making animals perform these unnatural tricks, purely for theentertainment of the audience, teaches nothing about the natural behaviourof polar bears; it simply reinforces the outdated idea that animals existpurely for human entertainment. Children may well go away from the showthinking that wild polar bears ‘belly dance’, wave hello and clap their paws.The polar bears are given live fish to demonstrate their hunting skills as partof the show. Whilst this may confer some benefit to the polar bears byserving as a brief distraction from their mundane lives, again thisdemonstration is of limited value in terms of teaching the audience aboutpolar bear behaviour in the wild. Polar bears are powerful hunters, and relyon their stealth when hunting on land for the seals and walruses which makeup the bulk of their diet. A wild polar bear’s diet consists of ninety five percent marine mammals 47 and wild polar bears only very rarely hunt and eatfish.What’s a polar bear doing in the tropics?70www.acres.org.sg