04/12/2007

Suffering in Confinement?

Berlin's Sad News Bears

Never mind the polar bear: Captive brown bears have lived in a hard-to-find park in Berlin since 1939. They symbolize the city -- a bear has been on Berlin's coat of arms since at least 1280 -- but do they have enough Lebensraum? Knutmania has led some activists to ask if the official mascots have enough space.

While Knut the baby polar bear stumbles twice a day in front of adoring fans at the Berlin Zoo, doubling the park's stock price and achieving world celebrity just for being alive, three adult brown bears lie around in a small concrete enclosure in another part of Berlin, looking bored. Schnute, Maxi and Tilo belong to the city itself: They're Berlin's official, living mascots. But now animal-rights activists argue a new home should be found for them.

The bears live in a brick house with a pair of tiny yards surrounded by a concrete moat originally built in 1939 for mascot bears donated to the city on the occasion of Berlin's 700th anniversary. The enclosure sits in Köllnischer Park, next to the city's history museum.

But is it too small in a new era in which most zoos are trying to create environments for their animals that offer more space and reflect their natural habitat? Yes, says the Berlin tabloid B.Z., which kicked up a minor scandal on Thursday by putting the bears' "suffering" on its cover and saying the bears look "sad" and wander around "with an empty gaze."

The head of German chapter of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), Harald Ullmann, said, "I didn't even know there were bears there," before a crusading journalist from B.Z. called him on Wednesday. "According to current zoo guidelines they have enough space, but in our opinion that isn't enough. They have 480 square meters (5,166 square feet) to live in for their entire lives."

"It's not optimal"

The bear enclosure at the Berlin Zoo provides 2,500 square meters (26,909 square feet) for five bears -- or almost five times as much space.

"It's a difficult situation," said Evamarie König, spokeswoman for Berlin's Animal Protection Association. Because of the enclosure size, she said, "It's not optimal. But the bears are healthy, we have to admit -- they're well cared for. And their enclosure can't be changed because it's under landmark protection."

Christa Junge, head of Bärenfreunde Berlin (Friends of the Bears in Berlin), which has looked after the animals since 1994, said the bears are not just healthy but also content. "The enclosure is larger than zoo guidelines recommend and as long as that's the case, nothing will change," she said. "What the B.Z. wrote about an 'empty gaze' is just silly. The house is much bigger inside than it looks, and it has a skylight. The bears can always retreat into it, which is very important." She pointed out that bears in the Berlin Zoo have no privacy; they're always on display. "Ours can come and go (during the day) at will."

The irony of the episode is that B.Z. led the original campaign in 1937 to introduce live bears to Berlin. A reader at the time wrote to suggest that "we, the citizens of the liveliest city" deserved a free exhibit of live mascots -- modelled on a bear exhibit in the Swiss capital of Bern. Berlin politicians responded in a fit of enthusiasm over the city's 700th anniversary by offering space in Köllnischer Park. The B.Z. organized a gift of four animals, and the enclosure was built in two years. Unfortunately, by 1939, Hitler was mounting a war against Poland, and the bears were dead by 1945. But a new bear couple moved into the enclosure in 1949 and became iconic animals for East Berliners during most of the Cold War. Nante and Jette even had a daughter, Julchen, in 1953. The family died off in the '80s, but the city has maintained bears in Köllnischer Park ever since.

In Bern, meanwhile, the wheels of reform have started to turn. The old bear pit there is still a major tourist attraction. But after years of complaints by activists and visitors about the cramped enclosure, the cantonal parliament approved a plan in March to build a 6,500 square meter park to accommodate the city's mascots.

This controversy is not exactly new to Berlin. In 1991 the head of the Berlin Zoo, Bernhard Blazkiewitz, argued that the bears should have better living arrangements -- in a zoo, for example. "If the city wants to keep that kennel as a landmark, we can put plastic bears in it," he quipped at the time.

But Christa Junge says Blazkiewitz was outnumbered by Berliners. "There was an uproar," she said. "Thousands of people wrote letters," against the idea of giving the mascots away. "Berliners wanted to keep their bears."

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