Overview
- Yelle, a 20-year-old polar bear weighing about 500 kilograms, left quarantine and entered the public habitat for the first time.
- Zoo staff have begun a slow, monitored introduction to resident Siku using visual barriers and scent and sound cues, with direct contact planned only after both bears show steady, relaxed behavior.
- After Baffin’s 2024 drowning from a crushed trachea during rough play with Siku, officials said they identified no human error and made no structural or procedural changes to the exhibit.
- Yelle came from Quebec’s Zoo Sauvage de Saint-Félicien and was born in the Netherlands, while Siku weighs about 420 kilograms.
- Keepers describe Yelle as an extrovert who spends more time outside, Siku as partial to the deep plunge pool, and the zoo presents them as Arctic ambassadors to teach visitors about a warming North.