The new Dutch director of Dublin Zoo, Mr Leo Oosterweghel, has promised to put the polar bears' problems at the top of his priority list.
The two polar bears suffer from a psychological condition arising from a lack of stimulation in the past, he said yesterday. They are now in larger quarters at the zoo, but are still showing symptoms of the condition. The bears, rescued as orphans from a rubbish tip in northern Canada, would probably not be accepted by the zoo today, he explained. "But we've got a responsibility to care for them. Can they go back to the wild? The answer is no. Their whole relationship to humans has changed," he said.
American and European experts were being consulted for advice which he hoped would help the bears "snap out of that undesirable behaviour". He added: "It's at the top of my list."
Mr Oosterweghel, who replaced Mr Peter Wilson as zoo director this week, said his predecessor had done a fantastic job at a time when the zoo had little money and space to expand.
The new director was in charge of Melbourne Zoo from 1996 to 2000 and has also worked at Wassenaar and Rotterdam Zoos in the Netherlands and the Territory Wildlife Park in Darwin as well as zoos in Adelaide and Perth. He said yesterday that he hoped Dublin Zoo could become a useful resource for Irish universities.
"There's the potential for the zoo to be an extension of a university campus. We've got a collection here and a responsibility to use that collection to justify its existence," he said.
Mr Oosterweghel said he was dedicated to improving what he called "environmental literacy" among Irish people. "I want to jack-up the level of environmental literacy but still allow people to have a fun day.
"That's not going to change. People don't wake up on Sunday morning and say 'let's go to the zoo to be educated'."
He said he had visited zoos where animals were badly treated and had felt "embarrassed" about his profession. However, he said, the priorities of zoo professionals were changing. "The zoo is an invention of the 1800s. These days there is a very different concept of its role," he added.
