New Polar Bear Comes To Detroit Zoo Looking For Love

ROYAL OAK, Mich. — Suka the polar bear is looking for love in all the right places - the right places being the Detroit Zoo. The 5-year-old female polar bear from Henry Vilas Zoo in Madison, Wisc. came to the zoo as part of a Species Survival Plan (SSP) breeding recommendation made by the Association of Zoos & Aquariums (AZA). Suka will be introduced to her new mate, Nuka, a 13-year-old male polar bear already living in the Zoo’s Arctic Ring of Life.

Nuka had been paired with Talini, a 13-year-old female. When Nuka arrived at the zoo in 2011, hopes were high that they'd produce offspring, Talini and Nuka have never produced cubs. And so, enter Suka, the new bear in town, and exit Talini to a zoo in Chicago where it’s hoped she’ll have better chemistry with a new bear of her own named Siku.

“It’s hoped that the change of settings and partners may help these bears breed successfully,” said Dr. Randi Meyerson, deputy chief life sciences officer for the Detroit Zoo and the AZA’s Polar Bear SSP coordinator.

These breeding plans are “cooperative management programs that work to ensure genetically healthy, diverse and self-sustaining populations of threatened and endangered species within the 230 accredited institutions that comprise the AZA,” according to the zoo.

Suka will stay in quarantine for a few more days, but will soon meet up with Nuka, as its breeding season and he’s the only match who ever comes up on her Tinder. Jokes aside, the zoo has high hopes for the new pair, and for the Ring of Life in general. The Arctic Ring of Life, a 4-acre habitat with grassy tundra, a freshwater pool, a pack ice area and a 190,000-gallon saltwater pool for the bears to frolic in, offers visitors views of the bears from a number of vantage points. One is the Frederick and Barbara Erb Polar Passage, a 70-foot underwater acrylic tunnel that allows visitors to walk among swimming polar bears or to view four rescued seals (who have their own separate area).