How do you take care of an elderly polar bear?

Victoria is the oldest of four polar bears kept at the Highland Wildlife Park in the Cairngorms National Park.

At the grand old age of 28 her keepers say she has reached the stage in her life when she needs geriatric care.

Rebecca Amos, one of the park’s vets, says a special diet and some exercise will be key to looking after Victoria in her dotage.

Victoria, born in 1996 at Rostock Zoo in Germany, arrived at the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland’s (RZSS) Highland Wildlife Park in March 2015.

Three years later she was a media star after giving birth to Hamish – the first polar bear cub to be born in the UK in 25 years.

Visitor numbers to the park soared and its gift shop was stuffed with Hamish cuddly toys and postcards and cards featuring him and his mum.

Hamish was moved to Doncaster’s Yorkshire Wildlife Park in 2020 and shares a 10-acre enclosure with five other male bears – Nobby, Luka, Indiana, Yuma and Sisu.

Victoria gave birth to another male cub – Brodie – in December 2021.

They continue to share an enclosure, but recently keepers noticed she was struggling to keep up with Brodie, who is now three.

He is Victoria’s last cub and she is no longer part of RZSS breeding programme.

The park’s two other bears are males Arktos, 17, and 16-year-old Walker.

They are middle aged in bear terms.

Polar bears can live into their early 30s, but an average of 15 to 18 years in the wild.

Rebecca says there is an effort at RZSS to prioritise later life care of its animals.

She says the bears already benefited from being kept in grassy enclosures, which have ponds for swimming in.

“The bears are on a pretty good substrate (surface),” she says.

“They don’t spend any time on concrete or tiled surfaces.

“Ultimately, if you were to spend 30 years on that – particularly for the boys who weigh 700 to 800 kilos – it takes a toll on even the best designed joints.

“Joint care is something we are looking at for the bears.”

Diet is another way the park is trying to keep Victoria, Arktos and Walker’s joints supple.

Rebecca says: “In the wild they eat seals.

“We cannot feed them seals, but we do try to emulate that the best we can so it’s a very high fat diet.

“They get huge volumes of cod liver oil, lard, salmon oil and get oily fish like sardines, mackerel and salmon.”

To help keep Victoria mobile, food is often scattered around her enclosure to encourage her to forage.

Rebecca says: “We are very fortunate we have such a huge amount of space and the enclosures are very large and they (the bears) tend to use all the space.”

RZSS has drawn on the experiences of other zoos and studies of polar bear skeletal remains to help understand wear and tear on the animals’ bodies.

Healthcare provided to domestic cats and dogs has also helped guide the care of Victoria.

And the Highland Wildlife Park has had an elderly polar bear before.

Mercedes died at the park in April 2011 at the age of 30.