If You Go Down To The Woods Today...

you’re sure of a big surprise. Bears and wolves are living side by side in an ambitious zoo exhibit in Bristol.

- Jo Price

When Wild Place Project first started releasing information about Bear Wood, some people got the wrong end of the stick and thought they were rewilding. “We’d get phone calls saying, ‘What do mean you’re going to be putting bears up here? What about my dog?’” says animal manager Will Walker.

Bear Wood has been described as the largest and most ambitious brown bear exhibit in the UK. It includes bears and wolves inhabiting sections of a 30,000m ancient woodland within the grounds of Wild Place Project, run by Bristol Zoological Society.

The plan for an attraction in Blackhorse Wood at Bristol Zoo’s sister site was put together 15 years ago, but the zoo really started working on the finer details 24 months ago. As a European Association of Zoos and Aquaria (EAZA) member, it contacted the relevant studbook keepers for the species it wanted to introduce to the woodland to get their input.

“Fortunately, the co-ordinator of bears, José Kok, has kept wolves and bears together for 25 years at Ouwehands Dierenpark, the Netherlands,” says Will. “She knows through hands-on experience what works and what doesn’t, so I was able to get a lot of information.”

Will joined a specialist bear group at EAZA that works with the co-ordinators of all eight species of bears, to discuss best practice: “When José was happy with what we were going to be doing, we made some changes and came up with a strategy for building this exhibit.

“We knew we wanted to create a woodland experience. A lot of places don’t necessarily do that, but we’re lucky that we’ve got an ancient woodland in the middle of the zoo that we can fence in. By giving the animals a woodland to live in, it’s more enriching.”