A black bear killed another bear during a fight on Sunday at Pairi Daiza zoo in Belgium.
According to zoo officials, the injuries of the bear who was attacked were so severe that the animal had to be euthanized.
The fight happened in an enclosure housing ten black bears that had reportedly coexisted peacefully for years. When the fight began, park staff initially tried to lure the animals away with food, according to a visitor.
As the situation escalated, staff fired warning shots in an attempt to separate the animals, but the fight continued. Due to strong winds, it was not possible to use tranquilizer darts, a spokesperson for the park told the Belgian newspaper HLN.
A visitor told HLN that the park didn’t respond immediately when the fight started. The visitor alerted staff about the severity of the situation. Other visitors said that the bears had been fighting the day before.
“Fights between bears happen often in the wild,” the spokesperson said, adding that “it’s instinct.” The aggressive bear has been placed in isolation, and the park will decide in the coming days whether the animal will be allowed back into the group.
Animal instinct in a zoo
In the wild, black bears can be aggressive, particularly during competition over food, mates, or territory. However, in captivity, the conditions are completely different than in the wild. The zoo environment often has stress factors that are not present in natural habitats.
Recent studies have shown that many animals in captivity suffer from stress and exhibit behaviors not seen in the wild, such as pacing, excessive grooming, or aggression.
In the wild, black bears roam across large territories, looking for food. They have the freedom to avoid conflicts by keeping their distance from other bears when tensions rise. In a fight, the loser can walk away, but in a zoo, the animal can’t escape, biologist Dirk Draulans explained.
While black bears are generally solitary animals, zoos often put them in groups. This forced closeness can lead to conflict, particularly during times of heightened stress. As much as zoo workers try, they can never fully understand animals, Draulans said.
The fight at Pairi Daiza could be a direct result of the limited space and lack of escape options available to the bears. In the wild, a fight would typically end with one bear pulling back. In a zoo, there’s no escape for an animal.
Support The Animal Reader – Daily Animal News
The Animal Reader is an independent animal news platform based in the Netherlands. We need your support to grow our platform that focuses on animal-related issues across the globe.
