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Polar bears live solitary lives
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Solitary
Polar bears are naturally solitary animals. This means they can live well alone.
In places where there is a lot of food, they tolerate each other and can live together more.
For the breeding program, polar bears are sometimes placed together in zoos.
Did you know that polar bears stay with their mothers for about two years?
A polar bear is solitary by nature, which means they do very well living alone. Nevertheless, in the wild you very occasionally see several polar bears living together. This is probably a mother with her cubs. They also tolerate each other if there is a lot of food in one place.
Zoos are places with plenty of food, so polar bears can live together there, too. The breeding program looks at which polar bears fit together. This could be a male and female, or a "bachelor group" consisting of only males or females. The coordinator of the breeding program determines the compositions using a computer program.
Felix and Rocky
Two males currently live in AquaZoo: Rocky and Felix. Felix was born in 2001 and he came to Leeuwarden from Ouwehands Dierenpark in Rhenen in 2016. Rocky was born on December 11, 2002 at Ouwehands Dierenpark in Rhenen. When he was 2 years old, after a short stop at Eindhoven Zoo, he moved to the Belgian zoo Monde Sauvage. There he lived until he moved to AquaZoo in January 2021.