Polárka with the keeper Josef Král. Photo: Archive of Prague Zoo
Ninety years ago, a new bear exhibit was ceremonially opened in Prague Zoo, a stone’s throw from the main entrance. One part of it was occupied by brown bears or American black bears, the other one by polar bears. These in the end became its the only inhabitants. With the passing of time the Prague residents as well as the visitors from outside of Prague could admire about thirty of them. And some of these polar bears were really famous.
Just the first one gained immense popularity. It was the female Nora, bought from the circus Karlas in 1932. I dare to say that her popularity was enhanced also by public interest in polar regions at that time. She arrived to the zoo six years after Roald Amundsen flew over the North Pole with the airship Norge, four years after publishing the first book of Jan Eskymo Welzl’s stories and also four years after the shipwreck of the polar airship Italia, on whose board also the Czech physicist František Běhounek was. Everyone had heard about the polar bears many times and now they finally got an opportunity to see them. After all, Nora’s fame continues to the present day – many still own a ceramic ashtray from the Ditmar-Urbach factory, on which she is depicted.
Sněhulka (Snow White), the first hand reared polar bear cub in Prague. Photo: Josef Seget
Also, the greatest success of Prague Zoo in the 1940s is related to a polar bear. The then director Lt Col MVDr Jan Vlasák with significant help of his wife managed to hand rear the cub Sněhulka (Snow White). Sněhulka was born in December 1942 and Lt Col Vlasák wrote a book about her after World War II. It was published first in London and then in New York, but unfortunately it was not available in Czech. It wasn’t until 2012 that I managed to find its original manuscript and we could also prepare the Czech edition. At that time, we also commemorated Lt Col Vlasák and his great success by unveiling a statue of Sněhulka from Kurt Gebauer next to the Gočár Houses.
At the turn of the1950s probably the most popular animal of Prague Zoo was the polar bear female Polárka, born here in November 1947. The Prague freezing plants used her enormous popularity and started using her name and picture on a frozen ice cream that they introduced to the market. Polárka has become a synonym for this type of product, which is used until now. Her image on an ice floe with the North Pole Star (or snowflake) then managed to get to the logo of Mochov freezing plant, and in the end – after many more or less successful imitations – to return officially on an ice cream, this time from Alimpex Food company.
Nora, the polar bear female, in a contemporary photo. Photo: V. J. Staněk
The ninety years, for which our Prague bear exhibit has been in operation, is a time that exceeds the lifespan of any construction in a zoo many times. Moreover, it is located at a very unsuitable place. Therefore, it is necessary to build a new, modern and in the first place spacious exhibit for polar bears – or give up their breeding definitively after more than ninety years. At the beginning of the autumn the documentation for the selection of the contractor for this new exhibit will be completed and the moment of deciding whether the construction will really start is thus approaching very quickly.
Written by: Miroslav Bobek