Comments on: The Polar Bear World

By: Jilli

Jilli — Fri, 15 May 2009 11:44:00 +0000

It’s great that the Polar Bears are doing well in the zoo, but over all Polar Bears population is diving down deep. Global warming has obviously made this specific species, living in the wild, decrease in numbers, so maybe restalking the wild will be in the near future for the zoo. It’s great for zoos to capture animals and have them mate to reproduce and increase the population, but they should also start giving back to the wild. The Polar Bears will become extinct without our help!

Is there a link to the carbon footprint challenge?

Moderator’s note: No link, just JoAnne’s request to hear what polar bear fans are doing. Now we need to get JoAnne to write another post!

By: Connie

Connie — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 14:30:07 +0000

Why doesn’t the webcam open for the Polar Bears? This is the third day with no bears………..having bear withdrawal.

Moderator’s note We are trying to resolve the problem. Please “bear” with us!

By: rachel

rachel — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 23:27:15 +0000

this is a great blog it has a lot of info on all the bears

By: Chari Mercier

Chari Mercier — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 16:27:37 +0000

Hi! I know what some of you are saying about the packaging of alot of products in the stores. Fresh veggies do not really have to be packaged in bulk; I prefer to have them on the shelves so that we can pick the ones we want without having to buy a huge bag, such as potatoes. There are alot of other products that do require packaging for health and safety reasons, such as frozen foods, meat. Meat is especially sensitive to contamination if left out in the open in the coolers. They are susceptible to salmonella and ecoli, so they have to be packaged with FDA standards. So, we will just have to deal with the packaging until there is some type of technology that can protect cold/frozen foods and meat better, and that technology is a long way off right now. We can recycle what we can, tho. Unfortunately, I have to have a friend take me to my recycle places because the trash companies here in Pinellas County, FL do not have recycle pickups at any of the apartment complexes around here, and I live in an apartment complex! We all need to do something about that.
Tybear, I have at least 8 cloth bags that I have bought for about a $1.00 each at the stores I usually go to, but I still use plastic bags and paper bags when I don’t have the cloth bags with me. I do recycle the plastic bags at stores that have recycle boxes for them, and I use the paper bags to pack my newspapers in to take to the recycle bin easier.
I made a suggestion to the panda keepers about their old bamboo coolers after they get their new cooler installed—have the old coolers recycled. That will bring in some money for the zoo!
I’m waiting for any new updates about Chinook and her possible pregnancy. Keep us informed about her progress, ok?
Well, gonna go and do some errands. Will check back in later on about Chinook.
Chari Mercier
St. Pete, FL

By: Diane

Diane — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 02:30:29 +0000

I’m in Canada, and there’s a lot more room here, plus I think we deal with getting-rid-of a little more efficiently. There are pick-ups of various kinds and people (junk dealers) who will come and take it away for a hauling fee. Still litter is a problem. Now we have bi-weekly recycling collection but that comes with “harvesters”, who move in early to collect what they can return for cash (mostly bottles). Sometimes too people put unwanted furniture (mostly couches) at the curb; anyone can take them for free. But I agree with you mostly about packaging. Why do we have to have a wad of paper and a hunk of plastic with just about anything we buy?

By: Susan (UK)

Susan (UK) — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 17:38:17 +0000

Diane, I totally agree with you about all the excess packaging. By the time I’ve got to the actual product, I’m so fed up that I can hardly be bothered with it any more! I think in Germany they have large bins at the front of their stores so that people can throw excess packaging away on their way out. But what on earth is the point of that? How about not having the excess stuff in the first place? The worst offender has to be plastic. I don’t know if it happens in the US, but here in the UK we, the consumer, seem to be the ones accused of creating rubbish when it’s actually the manufacturers who are creating all this waste by over-packaging. And if our TV’s, radios, computers etc, stop working, they tell us to throw them away. We need to go back to the days of repairing things and making them last.

One of my lasting impressions of my visit to your lovely country was the lack of litter. Everywhere was spotless and it was lovely. I wish I could say the same about the UK. Nobody cares any more and those of us that do are fighting a losing battle.

Another ‘bad’ thing is chemicals. I never use chemicals in my garden. Nor do I kill slugs or snails. I love my snails and I rescue them before I put the paper bin out for collection. If I grow plants that the snails eat, then I don’t grow that one again or I make sure it’s out of their way. OK, now everyone KNOWS that I am totally mad!!

By: Susan (UK)

Susan (UK) — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 13:33:09 +0000

Who was out this morning at around 6.25am? Couldn’t quite see who it was and they couldn’t quite decide whether to go in for a swim or not.

JoAnne, what do the keepers do in the mornings if one or more of the bears is out and they need to clean their pool etc? Or are they allowed out early some mornings? (The bears, not the keepers!)

By: Diane

Diane — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 02:35:08 +0000

For Chari: I follow all these things. There have been cubs in the USA and, I believe, one in Toronto. Latest were two years ago, one at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago (“Hudson”) and three in Toledo (“Nikita”, and twins “Anana” and “Aurora”). I think Nikita is still in Chicago, but Anana and Aurora have recently been moved to Pittsburgh, where they will be meeting up with Nuka and Koda, males born three years ago in Denver. True, most of the cubs in the news have been in Germany and the Netherlands, but there’s been lots of matchmaking going on this year. Next year, I hope to see a population explosion of cubs to follow into the future.

Also, I wondered what you all thought about the idea that we have so much packaging around us that it’s often way more than the actual product. Do you really need to have so much in our lives? If we had less packaging, we would not all be overwhelmed with the recycling we need to deal with. Recycling reduces garbage, but what if we could also reduce recycling.

By: Ty_Bear

Ty_Bear — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 21:33:42 +0000

what we’re doing:

1. take the bus or train to work and other places whenever possible.

2. recycling all glass/bottles and paper products (it’s mandatory in my area as well)

3. use an electric lawn mower that also *mulches* the grass instead of having the clippings become landfill waste. it also helps the grass be healthier and helps stop soil erosion.

4. turn off anything (lights, computers, fans, etc) in the house that is not being used and also unplug any rarely used items (like computer printers, rarely used lamps, etc) because they still draw some small current when turned “off.”

5. make sure to use weather stripping around doors/windows to prevent heat loss and i’ve also started turning the heat down, espeecially at bedtime and when we’re not home.

6. using fluorescent bulbs.

7. buying locally grown food as much as possible. local means that less gas was used to bring it to the store and likely that it was grown by small farmers who are less harsh on the environment than larger “factory farms” and often cheaper to boot!

8. become a member of PBI, not that expensive and you get a cool newsletter too

9. use the re-usable cloth bags or re-use paper bags when shopping.

10. don’t buy plastic trash bags. instead, occasionally get your groceries in the paper bags at the store and use those. cheaper and 100% biodegradable.

we’ve been doing all this stuff and more for over 5 years now and mostly it’s pretty simple and easy to do and in many cases saves money on top of being good for the environment and polar bears.

By: Chari Mercier

Chari Mercier — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 21:21:28 +0000

Hi! I’m also hoping that Chinook will be pregnant with one or two cubs myself! I would love to see a couple of babies running around and swimming with their mom! We haven’t had any polar bear births here in the USA since the birth of twin polar bear cubs back in the 1990s at the Denver Zoo.
I am also doing my part on the recycling front. I’ve been recycling soda and beer cans for a little bit of cash for almost 20 years now. I’ve been recycling newspapers, plastic jugs and bottles for just about 15 years, and recycling plastic bags for just about that long. The newspapers go to a recycle center or to the recycle bin at my son’s school, the plastic jugs and bottles go to a recycle center, the plastic bags go to the recycle boxes at the stores I usually go to. I take clothes and other things to either Goodwill or Salvation Army for resale. We have 4 LED bulbs in 3 lamps right now. One lamp has 3 lights, and 2 of them have the LED lights in them. We try to keep the lights off when we don’t need them, and try to limit water use as much as we can. We haven’t used the heater in our apartment very much either. We usually get the heat from the other apartments on the more colder nites here in Pinellas County, Florida, and those cold nites don’t come that often. We do use a lot of A/C, tho, because my husband has asthma; he needs a comfortable place to live in, especially during our hot and humid summers that last almost 5 months here. We don’t have a car either. The last car we had conked out on us a couple of years ago, we got it junked for some money, and we’ve been riding busses, taxies (when we have the money), asking our neighbors for rides to the store, asking my parents for rides when we need it, and walking. Walking is my biggest problem because I have degenerative arthritis in my lower back, and it does give me fits when I do too much or walk too long. We can’t afford to get another car right now, but when we do get one, we’ll get the Scion Xbox van, a Chrysler PT Cruiser, or another small Chevy car—all must be good on gas mileage. So, that’s what I have been doing on the recycle front and trying to do my best to change our environment around here.
Please let us know about the polar bears and whether Chinook will be having cubs this year! We’re also waiting on panda Bai Yun to go into estrus soon!
Chari Mercier
St. Pete, FL