May in the Yorkshire Wildlife Park

6.6.2022 by Ralph Morton

After a pleasant overnight bus journey from London I found my self back at the Yorkshire Wildlife Park (YWP) for the first day of a two and a half day visit.

The various enclosures on the new route to Project Polar all have interesting animals and I am glad that Mervi has been able to show Sheila and Philip Baker’s great photos of them. My focus, however, is on Project Polar.

The sign tells you that this is home to “the world’s largest carnivore”. In fact it is home to three young Polars and their mum.

Flocke has been separated from her cubs as she has now weaned them off her milk and wants to be alone. She has a roomy enclosure at the back and spends a lot of time just sitting in the doorway of her den watching the world go by. Sadly she was too far away for me to photo.

As often happens the world’s largest carnivores were not being very exciting to watch.

Closer inspection revealed the usual Polar Bear nap position.

A Ranger as the keepers are known at YWP soon brought everyone back to life and Indy, Yuma and Tala were in a huddle.

Indy and Yuma enjoy playfighting. It gives some idea of how big the boys have become.

Sometimes though all three decide that the two legs are more fun to watch.

Specially for Mervi Sisu and Nobby were showing off their “boomsies” while hanging around the den complex watching a Ranger. The other bear outside the dens was in full Polar Bear action.

Tala was sorting out her toys. A notice explained to visitors why Indy and Yuma were sometimes playing rough.

After lunch I returned to Project Polar 1 to find Luka busy gardening. Luka has taken over from Victor as the biggest bear at YWP. Because of this he is on his own. This may change if the Rangers decide another bear is able to play on equal terms with him. Hamish is so big and cheeky that he might be the one to share with Luka.

I don’t have a picture of Hamish from Monday as he was either in the den or too far away on the enclosure. But this curious bear is either Hamish or Luka. Behind him you can see the special fencing that is only used here between the entrances to the dens and enclosures.

All too soon it was time to head back to the entrance as the bears were settling down for the night.

This time I had managed to book a room in the recently opened Hex Hotel at YWP which gave me longer in the park and no bus journey back into Doncaster. I loved this decoration in the hallway.