Yorkshire Wildlife Park is one of the few zoos in the UK to care for polar bears. The 6 bears that they care for is one the biggest polar bear conversation projects in the world outside of Canada. Yorkshire Wildlife Park have created Project Polar in which they are trying to recreate the natural environment for the polar bears that they care for. The Yorkshire Wildlife Park says that “Remarkably, polar bears in the South Hudson Bay region (Canada) experience up to 7 months of conditions similar to those at Yorkshire Wildlife Park. This effort ensures the bears are surrounded by a familiar and comfortable setting, aligning with their natural habitats.“

Photo taken by Lydia Vadgama, Yorkshire Wildlife Park, November 24th 2024.

Arctic Ambassadors

Through Project Polar, Yorkshire Wildlife Park are official ambassadors for the Polar Bears International. Project Polar has meant that the park is now a Polar Bears International Arctic Ambassador Centre (PBI AAC), a hub for learning, research, development, and conservation. The focus of their work is to educate the public on the impact of climate change and how this affects the lives of polar bears. As ice caps melt, Polar Bears are losing their territories for hunting and are being forced to search further and further for food, so it is important that we contribute to finding ways to reduce carbon emissions within our communities.

Lydia and Ricky shared that it had been really special to see the polar bears up close in Yorkshire. One thing that surprised them is how mischievous the polar bears are and how they like to play with lots of different toys including kayaks or balls which they jump on and chew. Staff report that they are always having to find things that they can make that are durable as the polar bears have incredibly powerful jaws and are quick to break their toys! The bears also quite enjoying digging and rolling around in the mud so some were more brown than white.

Lydia managed to get several pictures of the lovely bears but one bear stood out in particular as they were teaching the public how to do polar bear yoga! There is an activity for this with young people in our outreach section of our website, which you can get to from here.

Thank you to Yorkshire Wildlife Park for the amazing day out to see the bears and for keeper talk with the bears. If you’d like to visit the park yourself, click the link to their website here.