A small boy calls out the sights because the prepare speeds via the Suffolk countryside from London Liverpool Road.
“Tractor. Church. Pigs. Polar bear! Dad! A polar bear!”
The dad doesn’t look up. “We don’t have polar bears on this nation.”
However the boy isn’t dreaming. There they’re: 4 polar bears lumbering throughout a giant inexperienced meadow beside a pond, a couple of miles outdoors Ipswich.
The arrival of the bears beside the railway line is inflicting loads of double-takes from passengers. Generally, the bears are introduced by the conductor. Often, the driving force seems to decelerate. It’s solely a matter of time earlier than this prepare is renamed the Polar Specific.
Polar bears belong within the frozen Arctic, above 70 levels north. And but these magnificent carnivores, one of many largest surviving land mammals on Earth, have been stored in captivity at a lot hotter latitudes since Egyptian instances. King Henry III housed one within the Tower of London. Within the twentieth century, they grew to become the charismatic inmates of concrete enclosures in flourishing city zoos. Screaming crowds liked them.
By the Nineteen Nineties although, polar bears had turn into the main target of campaigns to finish the caging of huge, clever, far-roaming animals. British zoos appeared to simply accept the argument that these carnivores, whose wild house vary could possibly be as huge as 135,000 sq. miles, couldn’t flourish in a zoo enclosure lower than a millionth of that measurement. By the flip of the century, only one polar bear remained in Britain.
Now, nonetheless, the polar bears are again. Within the final yr, Jimmy’s Farm, the farm and wildlife park run by farmer, conservationist and TV presenter Jimmy Doherty, has taken in 4. An additional 12 bears reside in three different British parks. Are these captive animals the perfect hope for a climate-challenged species whose wild inhabitants has dwindled to 26,000? Or ought to they not be right here in any respect?
The truth that a 49-year-old pig farmer owns 4 polar bears could possibly be essentially the most weird farm diversification ever. “Proprietor of polar bears. It makes me sound like I’m a Nordic god,” muses Doherty, resplendent in double denim. How in regards to the British Tiger King? “Jimmy Unique. That might be one thing. I haven’t obtained the outfits he’s obtained,” says Doherty of the eccentric Joe Unique from the Netflix sequence. “And I gained’t be ringing up Trump to get me out of jail.”
The story of how Doherty constructed the most important polar bear enclosure in Europe stretches again to his childhood, when he was college mates with Jamie Oliver. The younger Doherty was mad-keen on nature, labored at a wildlife park and spent his earnings (he nonetheless remembers his wage: £1.12 an hour) on his personal menagerie: polecats, terrapins, stick bugs. “In my bed room have been a great deal of snakes. I stored my pocket cash in a glass jar inside a snake tank so nobody would nick it.”
Later, Doherty studied zoology earlier than dropping out of an entomology PhD to rear pigs. He’d been impressed by John Seymour’s self-sufficiency books, and along with his entrepreneurial instincts he realised he may promote rare-breed pork and bacon on to new farmers’ markets. He rented 40.4 hectares (100 acres) of derelict floor and lived in a caravan; he was assisted by the Jimmy’s Farm documentary sequence and a £55,000 mortgage from Oliver. When he opened a farm store he noticed that guests have been fascinated by the animals. “So I put a sow and a litter out, after which a path, and it grew to become a farm park,” he says.
Then the telephone calls started. The RSPCA requested him to take emus present in a shed in Ipswich. A snapping turtle was found by an area storage. “She’s referred to as Peaches,” he says. “Increasingly more unique stuff.” When Doherty opened a butterfly home, his farm grew to become a registered zoo.
Doherty sees nothing odd in regards to the pigs and polar bears combo – it’s all a part of his mission to champion international and native conservation, farming and rewilding, and reconnect youngsters with nature and native meals manufacturing, as he explains once we stroll via his park.
There’s a rescued South American ring-tailed coati and racoons saved from a shed in Felixstowe. It’s possible you’ll say Doherty’s a rescuer. He can also’t resist a giant thought. “There’s at all times one other one across the nook,” he says. “Somebody says ‘we want your assist’ and it by some means provides you permission.” Doherty as soon as mentioned that he by no means wished his park to be a type of locations with polar bears and tigers. However that modified in 2022 when he heard that Orsa Predator Park in Sweden was closing and wanted to rehome two polar bears.
“Ewa had a tricky life – alopecia, a damaged claw. She couldn’t return to the wild they usually have been going to place her down,” says Doherty. “Time was of the essence.” He borrowed cash from the financial institution and, utilizing donated telegraph poles, constructed 15km of 4m-high fencing round a 6.5-hectare (16-acre) enclosure, which features a 16m-deep purpose-built pool, two dens, a state-of-the-art ventilated home, a saltwater dipping pool and a big pure woodland space. This facility value £1m. “It’s a large dedication. It’s like getting married once more,” he says. Was it a giant danger? “Was? Nonetheless is.”
Two bears, Ewa and her grownup cub Miki, have been shipped from Sweden to Suffolk final autumn. Inside days of arriving, Miki was useless. “That was horrific,” says Doherty. Miki had an undiagnosed coronary heart situation. “She was a ticking timebomb. She may’ve gone at any time. It was actually unhappy.”
Since then, Ewa has been joined by fellow females Hope (a former companion from Sweden), and Flocke and Tala from Yorkshire Wildlife Park. These two are a part of the European Endangered Species Programme (EEP) for polar bears, an official zoo breeding programme which goals to safeguard wholesome populations of threatened species in captivity.
On a brilliant autumn day, Tala is enjoying in a lake, whereas Flocke and Hope are rapidly drawn to a keeper arriving with melons, which they love. Ewa is ambling alone – it’s necessary they’ll discover non-public area, explains park director Stevie Sheppard. “There’s two large issues we attempt to do with all our animals. One is to offer them area. And the second is alternative. In the event that they need to stroll within the woods as a result of it’s cooler, they’ll stroll within the woods. They will dive within the deep lakes, bathe within the shallow pool or roll round within the grass or go in a den – it’s their alternative.”
You see them sliding down the hill within the woodland. They pile up the mud and roll about
How an Arctic species copes with sunny Suffolk at 52 levels north could be the most-asked query. Doherty factors out that imply excessive summer season temperatures in Hudson Bay – polar bear nation – are greater than Suffolk’s 22C. “Our fear was the excessive temperatures – that’s once they get warmth stress,” says Doherty. “In the event that they need to regulate their temperature they’ll go within the woodland, which is about 4C cooler. Having that woodland and the deep pool has actually helped.”
Enrichment features a diverse, seasonal food plan, whole-carcass feeding (a useless horse or cow), meals in blocks of ice, foraging for blackberries, watching the small fish within the ponds and loads of toys. Doherty notably enjoys letting them into the woods. “You see them sliding down the hill within the woodland. They pile up the mud and roll about,” he says.
The enclosures at Jimmy’s Farm are a far cry from conventional zoo pens. For critics, nonetheless, they’re nonetheless a a lot, a lot smaller area than the wild species enjoys. “We acknowledge that the services within the UK are a number of the bigger services in Europe,” says Chris Lewis of the Born Free Basis. In the end, the charity believes that no polar bears needs to be stored in captivity. They level to proof of stress in captivity: shortened lifespans, a excessive stage of stress-related fatalities, excessive toddler mortality (a 2003 examine put it at 65%), and a excessive danger of captivity-induced illnesses. “Our short-term asks of the zoo business can be to cease breeding polar bears after which look to section out the present inhabitants,” says Lewis, “as a result of there’s no significant or direct conservation profit to conserving polar bears in captivity.”
Lewis says it’s “laborious to grasp” why polar bears have returned to British zoos. Are they irresistible? Again in 2007, one bear powerfully demonstrated their box-office standing to the remainder of the European zoo neighborhood. Knut, a cub rejected by his mom at Berlin zoo, was hand-reared by a faithful keeper and have become a world media sensation. Knutmania noticed Berlin zoo take pleasure in essentially the most worthwhile yr in its 163-year historical past, with 30% extra guests and €5m in income. Merchandise, books and movies adopted – and tragedy. Knut’s keeper died, and so did Knut, aged simply 4, of a seizure triggered by encephalitis.
Bringing polar bears to Jimmy’s Farm was clearly a call of the guts for Doherty – however he had his monetary head on too. “The sums have so as to add up, in any other case you’re being silly. You be sure you repay the loans,” he says. They’d a 50% improve in guests over summer season half-term and are aiming for 300,000 this yr.
One more reason for British zoos bringing again polar bears is the modern work of Douglas Richardson. At Highland Wildlife Park in 2009, he oversaw the creation of a brand new polar bear enclosure, so Britain’s ageing final polar bear, Mercedes, could possibly be relocated from Edinburgh. Bear enclosures have been as soon as expensively comprised of concrete and metal, which essentially made them small. Richardson deployed way more cost-effective deer fencing, bolstered with electrical fencing, which was low-cost sufficient to construct a four-hectare (10-acre) enclosure.
“Utilizing what one colleague referred to as ‘rooster wire and harsh language’ to comprise polar bears allowed you to surround very giant areas very economically,” says Richardson, who has since suggested all three British zoos that preserve them. Yorkshire Wildlife Park arrange a brand new four-hectare (10-acre) enclosure in 2014; they now have six bears. Staffordshire’s Peak Wildlife Park retains two bears in two hectares (5 acres). Underneath Richardson’s steering, the primary British polar bear cub for 25 years, Hamish, was born at Highland Wildlife Park in 2017.
“The best way polar bears have been stored in zoos traditionally was, to be frank, nothing wanting appalling,” says Richardson. However he argues the brand new enclosures are a special world. He didn’t recognise Ewa when he checked on her at Jimmy’s Farm in September: her alopecia has vanished, she’s off medicine and has returned to her pure cycle. Of Doherty’s woodland, Richardson says: “It’s not precisely polar bear habitat however there’s a lot of shade and plenty of fascinating smells. And it seems polar bears like mushrooms.”
The concept of zoos being arks for imperilled wild populations stays a preferred one. However a zoo-kept polar bear has by no means been efficiently returned to the wild. “Widespread zoo reintroduction successes are normally invertebrates they’ve been capable of breed in giant numbers,” says Lewis. “Different examples that the zoo business makes use of are at all times the identical as a result of there’s so few – the Arabian oryx, the California condor. There’s not sufficient area to maintain [polar bears] in sufficient numbers to have a genetically numerous inhabitants that’s wholesome sufficient to launch into the wild. Zoos are virtually a distraction. Conservation motion must be taken to deal with the threats going through these species within the wild – the local weather disaster, air pollution, human encroachment.”
Richardson, who advises the European captive-breeding programme for polar bears, admits that “reintroducing polar bears from a captive inhabitants can be vastly, vastly tough” however argues that at the least a captive inhabitants retains that choice. He says the European inhabitants of 120 animals, based mostly on 60 founder animals, is genetically viable as a result of there was a gentle addition of latest wild people through Russia. “When you’ve got an everyday infusion of latest founders your precise inhabitants needn’t be huge,” he says.
Within the close to future, Richardson predicts that international heating will result in extra local weather change refugee polar bears requiring rescue from the wild. He hopes that new, huge fenced reserves extra reflective of the polar bears’ pure vary could also be established, mimicking what number of African safari animals reside in fenced reserves.
Polar bear Ewa consuming a carrot.
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Ewa having fun with a carrot within the autumn sunshine. {Photograph}: Joshua Brilliant/The Guardian
Again at Jimmy’s Farm, Doherty shouldn’t be ruling out breeding polar bears. “Possibly in the future, if we have been referred to as upon, and there was good cause to do it, and it was that we want extra paws on the bottom,” he says.
In the meantime, there’s one other large thought – or animal rescue – to take care of. Regardless of being “skint”, Doherty crowdfunded to save lots of the final brown bear, Diego, from Orsa Predator Park, and is now importing one other brown bear from a Romanian sanctuary. I can think about Michaela, Doherty’s spouse, rolling her eyes at his newest rescue. Does he get advised off for all the brand new burdens he acquires? “Quite a bit. There’s at all times somebody that wants assist. That’s the issue.”
This article by Patrick Barkham was first printed by The Guardian on 29 October 2024. Lead Picture: Flocke and her daughter Tala, who have been relocated to Jimmy’s Farm in Suffolk from Yorkshire Wildlife Park. {Photograph}: Joshua Brilliant/The Guardian.
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