Old brown bear neutered

The Zurich Wilderness Park Foundation keeps its wild animals in spacious, near-natural enclosures and ensures that the animals can live out their entire natural behavioral repertoire as far as possible. This includes, in particular, reproduction and the rearing and socialization of young animals. No wild animal in the Langenberg should therefore be generally excluded from reproduction. There are two reasons why the foundation nevertheless had the 20-year-old male brown bear castrated on November 17.

Firstly, the brown bears in the Zurich Wilderness Park are part of the European Stud Book (ESB). This aims to maintain a population of brown bears in captivity that is as healthy and pure-bred as possible. As the origin of the male brown bear in Langenberg is not fully known, his offspring have a lower breeding value than cubs with a known pedigree. And as it is becoming increasingly difficult to find good places for cubs, these should be reserved primarily for cubs whose origin and subspecies are fully documented - in contrast to the cubs in the Langenberg.

Secondly, the male brown bear in the Langenberg has reached an age of 20 years at which he would no longer have much reproductive success in the wild. In his life to date, the brown bear has reproduced a total of four times and fathered nine cubs.

In consultation with those responsible for the studbook, the Zurich Wilderness Park Foundation has decided, for the two reasons outlined above, to stop the reproduction of the 20-year-old male brown bear for the last third of his life in favor of maintaining a purebred bear population within the framework of the European studbook.

Further information

Martin Kilchenmann
Head of Communication
Zoological Curator
Tel. 044 722 55 24
martin.kilchenmann@wildnispark.ch