G
Guest
Guest
This is a delightfully interesting story, just sharing. Love the last line. Perdita
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"Single white female needs mate." - Patricia Yollin, Chronicle Staff Writer, 02.01.2004
As personal ads go, it's simple and understated. Aspiring matchmaker Deb Cano jokes that it couldn't hurt. Although her candidate is only 23, her biological clock is ticking. And there's another problem, too: Ulu, a onetime provocateur, might be more than most males could handle.
Still, Cano -- an animal keeper at the San Francisco Zoo -- is undeterred. She's hoping a betrothal might materialize at a four-day meeting of the International Polar Bear Husbandry Conference, which begins Wednesday in San Diego.
Polar bear experts from around the world will congregate, much like the beasts themselves, in unprecedented numbers. And decisions will be made -- about which bear goes where and who gets a mate -- that could end up procuring the equivalent of a mail-order groom for Ulu, the San Francisco Zoo's wild but virginal 636-pound polar bear.
Born in 1981 in the Canadian province of Manitoba, Ulu came to the zoo in 1984. She arrived as a bear with a past.
Ulu and her family were known as the "Gang of Four" in Churchill, a Hudson Bay outpost nicknamed "the polar bear capital of the world." Every autumn, it becomes a way station for migrating polar bears that have ditched their inland dens and are waiting for the bay to turn to ice so they can go north and hunt seals all winter.
"There are 900 people in Churchill and 1,200 to 2,000 polar bears," said Bob Debets, a retired foreman of the Winnipeg Zoo, who is married to Cano and drives a "tundra buggy" in Churchill for bear-watching trips during the height of the season.
Most bears leave the townspeople alone. Ulu and her foraging relatives, however, hung out at the Churchill dump, a ruling family of sorts.
Ulu began moving into the center of town, harassing residents and avoiding capture. She was finally trapped, detained in "polar bear jail" and then freed. In July 1984, she became a repeat offender and was flown 100 miles away before being released. Three weeks later, she returned to Churchill and tried to enter someone's screened porch.
At that point, it was "three strikes and you're out" for Ulu. Had she not been shipped to San Francisco, she would have been destroyed or possibly shot by an exasperated Churchill resident.
Fittingly, she is named after a traditional Eskimo knife with a sharp rounded blade. When Ulu was trapped in Churchill, "they used a seal to bait her," Cano said. "She sliced it right open."
In her quest to find Ulu a mate, Cano has visited Churchill the past two Octobers. During her most recent stay, she met a possible suitor for Ulu in polar bear jail. He shared Ulu's fondness for the dump and was breaking into cabins, wandering into camps and showing no fear of people, vehicles or helicopters.
Although Cano wanted him to be relocated to the wild, she knew he could be destroyed if he returned to town. As an alternative, she investigated moving him to San Francisco.
It won't happen: "No. 13" -- the number is spray-painted on his back --
was taken by helicopter to the frozen tundra on Nov. 24 and hasn't been heard from since.
And so Cano, who met her husband at a bear conference, is heading for San Diego and hoping Ulu might fare as well. Two years ago, Ulu was eighth on the North American waiting list for captive polar bears, which typically live until the age of 35. Now she's in the top three -- partly because she's no spring chicken and partly because her birth in the wild makes her genetically desirable.
On the whole, polar bear courtships at the San Francisco Zoo have not gone smoothly.
Two years ago, a Wisconsin polar bear destined for Ulu's lair had some medical issues that eventually doomed his transfer.
Two decades ago, Andy and Pike, the zoo's two other polar bears, were supposed to mate someday. Andy, born in Atlanta and named after then-Mayor Andrew Young, was imported as a companion for Pike (pronounced pee-ka), a female born at the San Francisco Zoo. They turned out to be a same-sex couple when it was finally discovered that Andy was a girl.
In 1959, a stud named John was brought in from Detroit to take up with 30- year-old Goofus and 6-year-old Marsha. It turned into a love triangle. The triangle was resolved quite publicly on Sept. 14, 1959, when John bit Goofus through the top of her head, as zoo visitors watched. The body was left at the door of their grotto, where he had dragged it.
And, most inauspicious of all, the opening of the zoo's bear grotto on Oct. 6, 1940, was tarnished when Francisco, who got his moniker from a naming contest for the city's children, killed his mate of two years in an attack witnessed by thousands of spectators.
The mate had been donated by William Randolph Hearst, publisher of the San Francisco Examiner. According to an account in his newspaper, "Francisco, with a snap of his jaws, drove his teeth through her skull" in a savage half- hour battle. She went to the taxidermist; he went back to his pit.
Ulu, by way of contrast, has calmed down a lot since her wild days at the Churchill dump. Twenty years later, she is, according to Cano, the most "laid- backed and relaxed" of the zoo's three polar peers.
On a recent morning, Ulu started out white but soon turned green after rubbing against some rocks and taking a dip in her pool, where the algae get inside hollow hair shafts in her fur. Later, she rolled around in the dirt and morphed into a brown bear. She gobbled up a carp and played with a stuffed purple snake. Other toys include an eyeless stuffed dog and a yellow hippo.
She ingests 5 pounds of horsemeat, 2 pounds of "polar chow" and 2 to 3 pounds of fish each day. Unlike Andy and Pike, who disdain rabbit and yams, Ulu eats everything. She has two exhibit areas to herself, while Andy and Pike live together next door. It's not likely that Ulu would attack them, but nobody wants to take the chance -- especially since Ulu still manages to hunt.
It's a feat few institutionalized creatures can accomplish. But, much to the dismay of pigeons and peacocks that end up in Ulu's enclosure, she usually succeeds.
"She'll leave the feet and a few feathers," Cano said.
article w/pics
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"Single white female needs mate." - Patricia Yollin, Chronicle Staff Writer, 02.01.2004
As personal ads go, it's simple and understated. Aspiring matchmaker Deb Cano jokes that it couldn't hurt. Although her candidate is only 23, her biological clock is ticking. And there's another problem, too: Ulu, a onetime provocateur, might be more than most males could handle.
Still, Cano -- an animal keeper at the San Francisco Zoo -- is undeterred. She's hoping a betrothal might materialize at a four-day meeting of the International Polar Bear Husbandry Conference, which begins Wednesday in San Diego.
Polar bear experts from around the world will congregate, much like the beasts themselves, in unprecedented numbers. And decisions will be made -- about which bear goes where and who gets a mate -- that could end up procuring the equivalent of a mail-order groom for Ulu, the San Francisco Zoo's wild but virginal 636-pound polar bear.
Born in 1981 in the Canadian province of Manitoba, Ulu came to the zoo in 1984. She arrived as a bear with a past.
Ulu and her family were known as the "Gang of Four" in Churchill, a Hudson Bay outpost nicknamed "the polar bear capital of the world." Every autumn, it becomes a way station for migrating polar bears that have ditched their inland dens and are waiting for the bay to turn to ice so they can go north and hunt seals all winter.
"There are 900 people in Churchill and 1,200 to 2,000 polar bears," said Bob Debets, a retired foreman of the Winnipeg Zoo, who is married to Cano and drives a "tundra buggy" in Churchill for bear-watching trips during the height of the season.
Most bears leave the townspeople alone. Ulu and her foraging relatives, however, hung out at the Churchill dump, a ruling family of sorts.
Ulu began moving into the center of town, harassing residents and avoiding capture. She was finally trapped, detained in "polar bear jail" and then freed. In July 1984, she became a repeat offender and was flown 100 miles away before being released. Three weeks later, she returned to Churchill and tried to enter someone's screened porch.
At that point, it was "three strikes and you're out" for Ulu. Had she not been shipped to San Francisco, she would have been destroyed or possibly shot by an exasperated Churchill resident.
Fittingly, she is named after a traditional Eskimo knife with a sharp rounded blade. When Ulu was trapped in Churchill, "they used a seal to bait her," Cano said. "She sliced it right open."
In her quest to find Ulu a mate, Cano has visited Churchill the past two Octobers. During her most recent stay, she met a possible suitor for Ulu in polar bear jail. He shared Ulu's fondness for the dump and was breaking into cabins, wandering into camps and showing no fear of people, vehicles or helicopters.
Although Cano wanted him to be relocated to the wild, she knew he could be destroyed if he returned to town. As an alternative, she investigated moving him to San Francisco.
It won't happen: "No. 13" -- the number is spray-painted on his back --
was taken by helicopter to the frozen tundra on Nov. 24 and hasn't been heard from since.
And so Cano, who met her husband at a bear conference, is heading for San Diego and hoping Ulu might fare as well. Two years ago, Ulu was eighth on the North American waiting list for captive polar bears, which typically live until the age of 35. Now she's in the top three -- partly because she's no spring chicken and partly because her birth in the wild makes her genetically desirable.
On the whole, polar bear courtships at the San Francisco Zoo have not gone smoothly.
Two years ago, a Wisconsin polar bear destined for Ulu's lair had some medical issues that eventually doomed his transfer.
Two decades ago, Andy and Pike, the zoo's two other polar bears, were supposed to mate someday. Andy, born in Atlanta and named after then-Mayor Andrew Young, was imported as a companion for Pike (pronounced pee-ka), a female born at the San Francisco Zoo. They turned out to be a same-sex couple when it was finally discovered that Andy was a girl.
In 1959, a stud named John was brought in from Detroit to take up with 30- year-old Goofus and 6-year-old Marsha. It turned into a love triangle. The triangle was resolved quite publicly on Sept. 14, 1959, when John bit Goofus through the top of her head, as zoo visitors watched. The body was left at the door of their grotto, where he had dragged it.
And, most inauspicious of all, the opening of the zoo's bear grotto on Oct. 6, 1940, was tarnished when Francisco, who got his moniker from a naming contest for the city's children, killed his mate of two years in an attack witnessed by thousands of spectators.
The mate had been donated by William Randolph Hearst, publisher of the San Francisco Examiner. According to an account in his newspaper, "Francisco, with a snap of his jaws, drove his teeth through her skull" in a savage half- hour battle. She went to the taxidermist; he went back to his pit.
Ulu, by way of contrast, has calmed down a lot since her wild days at the Churchill dump. Twenty years later, she is, according to Cano, the most "laid- backed and relaxed" of the zoo's three polar peers.
On a recent morning, Ulu started out white but soon turned green after rubbing against some rocks and taking a dip in her pool, where the algae get inside hollow hair shafts in her fur. Later, she rolled around in the dirt and morphed into a brown bear. She gobbled up a carp and played with a stuffed purple snake. Other toys include an eyeless stuffed dog and a yellow hippo.
She ingests 5 pounds of horsemeat, 2 pounds of "polar chow" and 2 to 3 pounds of fish each day. Unlike Andy and Pike, who disdain rabbit and yams, Ulu eats everything. She has two exhibit areas to herself, while Andy and Pike live together next door. It's not likely that Ulu would attack them, but nobody wants to take the chance -- especially since Ulu still manages to hunt.
It's a feat few institutionalized creatures can accomplish. But, much to the dismay of pigeons and peacocks that end up in Ulu's enclosure, she usually succeeds.
"She'll leave the feet and a few feathers," Cano said.
article w/pics
