Arctic Blast
Chill out with the bears at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium’s newest attraction, Polar Frontier. “The colder it is, the more they like it,” says Jeremy Carpenter, assistant curator of the North American exhibits. “Bears and other Arctic animals love snowfall, and the spacious habitat areas allow the Arctic animals to really enjoy the cooler temperatures of fall and winter.”
Human families, however, can enjoy climate-controlled warmth during those chilly months in both sheltered viewing areas and in Polar Pete’s Living Room at the 4,500-square-foot Battelle Ice Bear Outpost. Video games on computers here allow kids to take the role of a polar bear hunting for food or learn about the ecology of the Arctic. They can also snuggle up on a big sofa to watch videos of the polar bears on the ice or clips of researchers at work.
“One place inside allows visitors to see the foxes in their den and there is another where you can control outside cameras to look for the bears,” says Carpenter.
You can also descend to watch the polar bears from under water as a curved wall of 5-inch-thick, clear acrylic separates you from swimming fish and bears.
Outdoor viewing areas for the bears are covered and partially walled. For the polar bears, the floor is just above water level, so you can see out into their rocky habitat or down into the water as the bears swim. The Alaskan brown bears love to wrestle, and since the water in their habitat comes about 30 inches up the thick acrylic walls, there’s plenty of splashing going on.
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