Kodiak bear has arrived at our Zoo

Kodiak bear has arrived at the SóstóZoo.

Taquka, the gigantic Kodiak bear, weighing more than 600 kg, has arrived from the Orsa Predator Park in Sweden together with its Eurasian brown bear friend.

 The bears native to the Kodiak Island in Alaska are considered to be the largest brown bears in the world. The Kodiak bear, with more than 3,000 individuals, is even larger than the grizzly bear known from the adventure novels, but is less widespread, because it only lives on the Kodiak archipelago.

 Taquka, the gigantic Kodiak bear weighing more than 600 kg, arrived at the Nyíregyháza Zoo together with Felix, his Eurasian brown bear (Ursus arctos arctos) friend from the Orsa Predator Park in Sweden.

 The Kodiak bear (Ursus arctos middendorffi) is the largest subspecies of the brown bear. Kodiak bears are the largest brown bear and are comparable in size to polar bears.

Presumably, the Kodiak bears have been isolated from the brown bears since the last Ice Age, and have formed an independent population along the coast of Southwest Alaska, on the Kodiak archipelago, for 12,000 years.

 They are solitary in nature; however, in areas rich in food, such as along salmon spawning streams, they often occur in larger groups. The abundance of protein-rich foods can largely explain their huge build.

 The bears have tolerated the 2,000 km journey between the two zoos quite well, and from today, they can be seen in the 1-hectare Bear Forest of the Nyíregyháza Zoo.