highly symbolic animal has returned to Zoo Berlin: the brown bear. Berlin has always been the capital of bears, with the animal gracing all manner of things associated with the city from its coat of arms to its manhole covers.
These bears have come from Orsa Predator Park in Sweden, which has now closed its gates. As part of the European Endangered Species Programme for brown bears, Berlin was selected as the new home for the three brothers Lucifer, Lillebror and Momoa who are all now four years old. The bears’ home, which took about a year to renovate, is designed to resemble their habitat in the wild, with rock caves and dead wood. Brown bears living in the wild spend most of the day foraging. The bears can also find a sweet “sap” several times a day at a specially built “honey tree”.
Although brown bears count among the world’s large predators, they actually eat a vegetarian diet for most of the year – mainly berries, fruits, roots, grasses and herbaceous plants. Brown bears disappeared from large parts of their original European range due to hunting and habitat destruction.
In Germany, too, brown bears have been considered extinct for over 150 years, despite repeated sightings close to the country’s borders. Brown bears have since returned to neighbouring European countries including Italy, Austria and France.
