Lincoln Park Zoo round itself detailing a polar bear’s day after a viral video showed the bear with just a little ice on a hot day.
Tyler LaRiviere/Sun-Times file
Life for a Lincoln Park Zoo polar bear sounds like something you might read about in a glossy brochure for a Fiji Islands getaway or perhaps an elite summer camp.
“In their 11,383-square-foot indoor and outdoor habitat, these bears always have access to air-conditioned spaces behind the scenes as well as multiple temperature-controlled dive pools, a stream, a cooling ice cave, dig pits, grasses, mud, and an ice machine that creates ice piles like the one shown in the video,” according to a zoo Facebook message posted Monday.
The zoo folks found themselves having to explain in precise details the perks of polar bear life after a cellphone video popped up last week on Facebook in which a visitor complains: “How is it that they got this poor bear on this little bit of ice, and it’s like almost 100 degrees outside?”
The video went viral, and, as of Tuesday, had 810,000 views.
But the video is misleading, according to the zoo.
“Furthermore, the video is also just a moment of male polar bear Siku’s day. Using cameras built for 24/7 monitoring, the zoo’s animal care staff and animal welfare scientists can see that on [June 23], Siku spent his morning swimming in the cold water deep dive pool, explored the habitat for snacks, slept behind the scenes while keepers cleaned the habitat, foraged for more food throughout the north side habitat, participated in a training session in the south habitat, headed inside for an hourslong afternoon nap, and headed back outside. Then, he dug through an enrichment ice pile intended to elicit foraging and found hidden fish and once he ate those up, chose to take the opportunity for another nap on the ice pile.”
Siku is about 12 years old and weighs around 1,000 pounds, according to the zoo. Siku is one of two polar bears — the other, Talini, a female — living at the zoo.
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