Zoos, Circuses, Safaris: A Gallery of Captivity

[brotherbear]

This story is told ( but lost ) somewhere over at the old AVA. The lion cubs and bear cubs grew up together in this zoo, in Japan I believe ( could be wrong ). The bears are Hokkaido brown bears ( Ursus arctos yesoensis ). Although they are the same age, the lions are fully mature while the bears are hardly more than sub-adults. No serious fighting was ever reported among these well aquainted animals. But, I doubt that they were kept together as the bears began to fully mature. It is my understanding that the Hokkaido bears are very closely related to the Ussuri brown bears of Siberia. Reply