The Point Defiance Zoo’s last remaining polar bear is moving to the Midwest later this fall.
Laerke, who has been at the zoo since 2023, is leaving on a recommendation from the Polar Bear Population Alliance so that she may mate with another polar bear to bolster the population at zoos and aquariums in the United States. She’s one of only 37 such polar bears in the country, said Point Defiance Zoo general curator Malia Somerville.
“Within our zoo aquarium industry, we care for all of our animals collaboratively, and so for a lot of species, we’ll have reproductive biologists who help us plan which animals should breed with each other, and then we transfer those animals around to get them in good compatible pairings,” Somerville said…