Bear Exhibit

Animals | Exhibit Information | Meet our Bears | Enrichment

Bear Exhibit
Watch polar bears swim underwater in a simulated arctic exhibit. Then travel to the tropics on the other side of the Pacific Ocean to see a smaller bear that likes to spend time in the trees.

Exhibit Animals

Polar Bears | Malayan Sun Bears

Exhibit Information

Polar Bears

General: Opened in September of 1986, this exhibit simulates the environments around Churchill, Manitoba, Canada. The "rocks" are gunite (shot-crete)- concrete sprayed onto form that has been covered with crinkled aluminum foil for texture. Color was added to more closely resemble natural rocks.

Summer Exhibit: Pool contains 25,000 gallons of water and has a wave machine

Winter Exhibit: Pool contains 50,000 gallons of water. Visitors get a close-up view of the bears, often times nose-to-nose with nothing more than the glass between them. They are fun to observe as they swim underwater.

Sun Bears

Gunite trees contain heating coils in tree crotches. Their water is changed every week.

Meet Our Bears

Polar Bears

Name	Birth Date & Place	Came to Oregon Zoo	Comments
Conrad (male)	12/1/84 Riverbanks Zoo (Columbia, SC)	1/31/86	brother to Tasul
Tasul (female)	12/1/84 Riverbanks Zoo (Columbia, SC)	1/31/86	sister to Conrad, name means "shuffle" in Aleut
Yugyan (female)	12/15/85 Cleveland Metro Zoo (OH)	9/3/86	name means "northern lights" in Aleut. Pronounced "you-yang"

How To Tell Them Apart
Conrad is much larger than Yugyan & has roman nose. Tasul is smaller, has marks on head and a shorter, straighter nose. Tasul has shorter back legs than Yugyan.

Malayan Sun Bears

Name	Birth Date & Place	Came to Oregon Zoo	Comments
Vivian (female)	10/10/85 Audubon Park Zoo (New Orleans, LA)	3/12/86	hand-raised because mom not successful at raising her young; spots on crescent
Jody (female)	7/9/86 Maryland Zoo in Baltimore	7/25/00	dark nails; smaller than Vivian; doesn't climb trees as often

Enrichment

Learn about the things we do to enrich the lives of our animals.