Displays of vigor by two Asian black bears named Brown Sugar (黑糖) and Beary (貝兒) at Taipei Zoo during which they damaged small trees growing in their enclosure have prompted the zoo to take action to protect the saplings.
The zoo said Asian black bears are solitary animals whose activity range in the wild is about 50km2, which is five times the area of Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義).
The zoo said it strives to provide enough space and a rich environment for Brown Sugar, who appeared in Oscar-winning director Ang Lee’s (李安) blockbuster movie Life of Pi, and Beary, who is part of a conservation program run in cooperation with Shoushan Zoo in Kaohsiung.
Photo courtesy of Taipei Zoo
Taipei Zoo on Friday said that it tried providing driftwood for them to play with, but Brown Sugar is particularly fond of breaking tree trunks and biting and waving the branches.
Apart from protecting the saplings and small trees, the zoo said keepers made a variety of props, including hammocks and bags with food hidden in them, with sturdy fire hoses and pipes to encourage the bears to spend more time and energy on gathering food and exploring the environment.
They have also introduced behavior training, such as teamwork exercises with keepers and desensitization training to stimulate their minds and alleviate boredom.
Taipei Zoo said it also keeps Formosan black bears, which in the wild live mainly in mountainous forests away from human activities at elevations of 1,000m to 2,500m.
They are at the top of the food chain and have almost no natural predators apart from humans, the zoo said.
Conservationists have never stopped helping injured black bears and releasing them back into the wild, but their biggest threats — habitat fragmentation and illegal hunting — still exist, it said.
The zoo cited surveys conducted in the past few years as saying that the number of Formosan black bears in the wild is about 200 to 600, indicating that the conservation program has a long way to go.
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