Victoria, the oldest of four polar bears living at the Highland Wildlife Park in the Cairngorms National Park, has reached a point in her life where she requires geriatric care. At 28 years old, Rebecca Amos, one of the park’s vets, explains how a special diet and exercise will play an important role in looking after Victoria in her later years.
Victoria was born at Rostock Zoo in Germany in 1996, and she arrived at the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland’s (RZSS) Highland Wildlife Park in March 2015. In 2018, Victoria gave birth to Hamish, the first polar bear cub born in the UK in 25 years, gaining media attention and seeing a surge of visitors to the park. Hamish has since been moved to Doncaster’s Yorkshire Wildlife Park and Victoria has given birth to another male cub, Brodie, in December 2021. However, the keepers have noticed that Victoria is struggling to keep up with Brodie, who is now three years old, and thus is no longer part of RZSS breeding program.
The park aims to prioritise care for their animals in their later years; a good substrate for the bears, keeping them on grassy enclosures with ponds for swimming in, preventing them from spending time on concrete or tiled surfaces, is an essential element in their wellbeing. The park’s healthcare strategy relies on the experiences of other zoos, skeletal remains studies, and veterinary care provided to domestic cats and dogs. Polar bears can live into their early 30s, but an average of 15 to 18 years in the wild.
Victoria, Arktos, and Walker’s joints are kept supple through diet, which includes cod liver oil, lard, salmon oil, and oily fish such as sardines, mackerel, and salmon, emulating their wild environment, where they eat seals. Victoria is kept mobile by scattering food around her enclosure. The bears have a vast amount of space in the park, which they tend to use and roam around in.
This isn’t the first time the park has had an elderly polar bear; Mercedes died at the park in April 2011 at the age of 30. In conclusion, Victoria’s geriatric care demonstrates the park’s commitment to providing the utmost care for each animal in their care
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