Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
Polar bears' return buoyed by provincial cash
Construction could start in 2011
The Assiniboine Park Zoo has been without a polar bear since Debby died last year at age 42.
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WINNIPEG - The Manitoba government announced a $31-million contribution toward the International Polar Bear Conservation Centre that will include an enclosure and education facility at the Assiniboine Park Zoo.
The funding will allow the Conservancy to begin building a state-of-the-art polar-bear enclosure in 2011.
The largest zoo in Manitoba, the self-proclaimed polar bear capital of the world, has been without a member of the iconic Arctic species since 2008, when 42-year-old zoo resident Debby died. The zoo is unable to acquire another adult polar bear because its existing bear enclosure, built in the 1950s, no longer meets Manitoba Conservation standards for the species.
Young polar bears, however, could be housed at the zoo temporarily as part of a plan to make Winnipeg the centre of international polar-bear education as well as rescue efforts for orphan polar bears found anywhere in the Arctic.
The non-profit Assiniboine Park Conservancy plans to build a polar-bear centre that will include a new enclosure with an underwater viewing area, an interactive link to polar-bear denning grounds near Churchill as well as a polar-ecology and climate-change research facility.
Young polar bears could arrive even before construction begins.
"If a polar bear becomes available, we'll do our best to ensure it finds a home," zoo co-ordinator Gordon Glover said in June, when the plan was first announced.
"We will have a facility that will allow them to survive in way that's decent and respectful for them," Premier Greg Selinger said Wednesday.
Zoo visitors likely won't be able to see the orphan cubs, which will be fed and cared for behind closed doors in order to acclimatize them for life in other zoos.
Orphan polar bears are never returned to the wild, where they would die of exposure, starvation or cannibalistic predation.
"We're not doing this to show people polar-bear cubs, as cute as they are. We're doing this to keep cubs alive," Bob Williams, the Canadian chairman for Polar Bears International, also said in June.
Selinger would not say Wednesday how much the province will contribute to the new polar-bear centre. No federal funding is involved, but the conservancy is seeking private donors.
The polar-bear facility is the most dramatic aspect of a $90-million Assiniboine Park Zoo revitalization plan.
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition December 3, 2009 B1
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Updated on Thursday, December 3, 2009 at 11:10 AM CST:
Adds details of funding from province
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