Many people ask me, “What do you feed the bears?” and “How do you keep polar bears in San Diego?” What they don’t realize is that the answers are closely related. Polar bears in the wild rely on the sea ice to hunt their main prey, ringed seals; because of this, their hunting season lasts only six to eight months each year. It’s the fat stores they build up from eating these seals that give them energy throughout the year. These same fat stores also help to insulate them from the harsh Arctic environment. It’s estimated that an adult polar bear needs approximately 43 ringed seal kills in order to sustain itself for a year. With a success rate of one seal catch every three to four days and a warming climate, this makes life very tough for the polar bears left in the wild.

Fortunately for Chinook, Kalluk, and Tatqiq, they live at the San Diego Zoo and don’t need to worry about hunting a seal for a meal or storing up fat. They get to eat year round and keep a slimmer, trimmer figure. For a polar bear in the wild, seals constitute about a 95 percent fat content diet; here, they get fed a more protein-based diet with only about 5 percent fat. If we allowed our bears to obtain the four inches of blubber they would normally need in the wild, they would not be well suited for our climate, and there would be more potential for overheating and health concerns. So we provide them with a variety of dry chows, fish, and what is known as zoo carnivore diet, which is a beef-based product. As with most carnivores, after a kill is made the bears consume the fur, tendons, bones, etc. To mimic this, we also offer rabbits and cow femur bones a few days a week.

All three bears get a tailored diet based on age, size, and requirements. They are fed this individually, as we do monitor their weights closely to keep them within a reasonable range. But they still go through natural tendencies to want to bulk up or feast during the hunting season. We accommodate this with vegetables. Yes, our bears love to eat their veggies! This provides them the opportunity to eat more without utilizing the calories as fat. It gives them a nice full feeling in their tummy, and the hard crunchy items help keep their teeth clean. The same behavior has been seen of bears in the wild when they’ve come across a nice bed of kelp. Some of you may think this wouldn’t sound appealing to a polar bear, but I have witnessed Kalluk walk right past a bone in order to get to a pile of carrots or a head of lettuce.

Now that you know what we feed our polar bears here at the Zoo, how would you like to share a breakfast with them? Of course, the menu would be a little different for you. We are offering a unique breakfast with the polar bears. You’ll get a special early morning experience out at Polar Bear Plunge, complete with enrichment for the bears and a keeper talk. Then you head over to pandas for another close encounter. And then it’s upstairs to the conference room at the Giant Panda Research Station for a hearty breakfast and an opportunity to speak one on one with some of the bear keepers who take care of these magnificent animals.

Kelly Murphy is a senior keeper at the San Diego Zoo.

Here’s more information about Polars, Pandas, and Pancakes…

Listen to an iZoofari Chat with Kelly…
Listen to iZoofari Chats about bears, featuring keepers and researchers…

Help the Zoo’s bears and bear research in the wild by donating to our May 2008 Bear Wish List…

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