About a year after Hogle Zoo’s two female polar bears moved away, a new one has arrived in Utah as part of a specialized breeding program.
Zookeepers hope 5-year-old Neva will bond with Nikita, a 15-year-old male bear who came to the zoo last spring from North Carolina.
Neva — whose name means “white snow” in Spanish, and matches the name of a river in Russia — comes from The Maryland Zoo in Baltimore, where she lived with her half-sister, Amelia Gray. According to that zoo’s general curator, Mike McClure, the two bears had reached a point in their development where they needed new opportunities.
“Bears, just like us, continue to grow,” said McClure in a video posted by The Maryland Zoo on its Facebook page, which shows Neva and Amelia Gray swimming and snoozing together.
Since Neva grew up with a twin brother, Nuniq, and is accustomed to being around male bears as a result, there’s a good chance that she will get along with Nikita, according to a news release from Hogle Zoo.
Both bears are curious and playful. But it could still take several months for them to get to know each other, and they may never cohabitate, since polar bears are naturally solitary animals, the release states.
So far, Neva is doing well and has slowly been getting used to her new home in Hogle Zoo’s Rocky Shores exhibit, animal care supervisor Kaleigh Jablonski said. Rocky Shores is also home to sea lions, grizzly bears, river otters, fish and harbor seals.
Neva comes to the Salt Lake City zoo as part of the same Species Survival Plan that brought Nikita to Utah last year. The Association of Zoos and Aquariums program electronically matches animals from different zoos, most of which are endangered or threatened.
Polar bear populations are declining. Known by the Latin name Ursus maritimus, or “sea bear,” polar bears are normally found along the coasts and sea ice of Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Russia and Norway but are under threat from climate change.
