NEWS

ACRES IN THE NEWS
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The Straits Times
7 May 2007

Improve living conditions for Inuka the polar bear
Letter from Louis Ng Kok Kwang
Executive Director Animal Concerns Research and Education Society (Acres)

I REFER to the article, 'Inuka the polar bear to stay on in sunny S'pore' (ST, May 3).

The Animal Concerns Research and Education Society (Acres) commends Singapore Zoo for reaffirming that it will not be importing any more polar bears.

However, if Inuka is to remain in tropical Singapore, we strongly urge the zoo to consider drastically improving the living conditions and raising them to meet international standards.

In response to an e-mail about the small size of the polar bear enclosure, the Singapore Zoo did previously acknowledge that this point raised about space constraints for the polar bears was valid.

The current polar-bear enclosure fails to meet the minimum standards laid out in the Polar Bear Protection Act, which was made law by the Government of Manitoba, Canada, in 2003. The Singapore Zoo enclosure fails both in terms of size and design.

These guidelines outline the minimum standards of care and husbandry that must be followed by those institutions housing polar bears. These strict guidelines must be met by any zoo wishing to acquire a polar bear from Manitoba.

Indeed, if Singapore Zoo today wanted to acquire polar bears from Manitoba, the government, by law, could not allow it.

Acres notes that both Inuka and Sheba are still displaying abnormal stereotypic behaviours (pacing and swimming in circles). These behaviours in captive animals have been associated with poor welfare for five decades.

For most wild mammals in captivity, this probably means that the animal grew up in or is currently living in an environment suboptimal for meeting its natural, species-specific behavioural needs.

The Singapore Zoo must make every effort to improve the welfare of the polar bears and eliminate these stereotypic behaviours.

This recommendation is in line with one of the conclusions in a report by researchers from Oxford University which stated that polar bears and other wide-ranging carnivores do so poorly in captivity that zoos should either drastically improve their conditions or stop keeping them altogether.

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