COLUMBUS – There is a new man about the iceberg at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium’s Polar Frontier exhibit: Lee, an 18-year-old male polar bear, arrived Wednesday from the Denver Zoo.
NOTE: The Columbus Zoo and Aquarium will host its “Veterans Free Day at the Zoo” event on Sunday, Nov. 11. Military personnel, both past and present, and their immediate family may enjoy free admission to the Zoo for the day. Present military ID or other proof of service.
After a mandatory quarantine period, Lee will be introduced to 11-year-old twin sisters Aurora and Anana in hopes that they will breed in the future and produce more cubs, such as the four that were fathered recently by Nanuq (right), who died last year, zoo president and CEO Tom Stalf said.
The four surviving cubs born since the Polar Frontier region opened in 2010 – Nora, Amelia Gray, and twins Neva and Nuniq, a male – have all been relocated to other zoos from Oregon to Baltimore.
Bringing Lee to Columbus was the recommendation of the Association of Zoos and Aquarium. The organization’s Species Survival Plan is a program designed to maximize the genetic diversity and increase the population sustainability of threatened and endangered species in human care, Stalf said. Currently, there are less than 50 polar bears in North American zoos, and the species is facing increasing threats in their native range.
The births are important to the survival of polar bears, the first species to be listed under the Endangered Species Act as threatened primarily due to climate change.
Polar bears are native to the polar regions of Alaska, Canada, Russia, Norway, and Greenland and their populations are declining due to the disappearance of sea ice.
Experts estimate that only 20,000-25,000 polar bears are left in their native range and some scientists believe if the warming trend continues, two-thirds of the polar bear population could disappear by the year 2050, Stalf said.