Dierenrijk Zoo is welcoming a new resident this Saturday, when brown bear Tosho is moving from Bulgaria to Nuenen. Tosho is nine years old and has been living alone in a concrete bear pit since birth.
Dierenrijk, together with bear protection organization Alertis, received permission from the Bulgarian government to take him away.Caretakers travelled from Nuenen to Bulgaria in order to prepare the trip. If everything goes according to plan, they will arrive in the Netherlands on Saturday. After four weeks in quarantine, Tosho will meet his new cage mates: four female bears who are currently living at the zoo Dierenrijk. This does not mean that there are going to be baby bear cubs, because Tosho will be castrated. Breeding of brown bears does not take place in Dutch zoos. Many of these animals live in captivity under appalling conditions after they have been caught in the wild illegally. The brown bears in zoos such as Dierenrijk are so-called “shelter animals”.
