Nogeyama Zoo's tribute to polar bears

Today, and February 27th annually, is International Polar Bear Day 国際ホッキョクグマの日.  There are loads of zoos in the Kanto plain, but as far as I am aware only one of them have polar bears. And that is Ueno Zoo in Tokyo. They currently have two polar bears.

Nogeyama Zoo in Yokohama, an excellent free zoo, used to keep polar bears too. But they haven't had them since 1999, Moreover, they did a really nice thing when their last polar bear died. Rather than introduce more polar bears or replace them with another species, they decided to preserve their enclosure. They repurposed it into an educational exhibit called "Shirokuma no Ie", "The Polar Bear House". 

We visited it a few years ago, when my children were still small, and they really enjoyed it. The photo in this post is from then. We could go into the enclosures and the kids delighted in playing with the polar bear statues. The exhibit preserves the zoo’s history and raises awareness about the species. Its a nice place to visit with kids on International Polar Bear day.