They won’t have the skills to survive in the wild. In the arctic, cubs spend a couple years learning how to survive from mom. These cubs are destined to be in enclosures for the rest of their lives instead of ranging across thousands of square miles. A lot of captive polar bears develop visible signs of stress from living in captivity like shaking their head back and forth repeatedly or swimming or running in circles. Even if you think that zoos are a necessary evil, this isn’t exactly uplifting news.

Thanks buddy, I kind of feel like I’m taking crazy pills that people are viewing this as only good news, so it’s good to know I’m not the only one.

There are 20,000-25,000 polar bears left in the world. 40 captive bears that will not be released into the wild are not a factor when it comes to conservation genetics. I get the zoos as a necessary evil argument for public education and I think it has some merit, but I think it also tricks some people (see this thread being in r/upliftingnews) into thinking we are doing more for the species than we actually are. Documentaries can show people how awesome these creatures are and the imminent threat they are facing. A captive polar bear surrounded by glass and metal shaking its head back and forth or swimming in circles isn’t the image people should have.

Even at its best, I’ll put some emphasis on the ‘evil’ part of necessary evil. Some animals can adapt ok to well-run zoos with large enclosures and space for the animals to be away from humans if they choose. Polar bears are not one of those animals.

Yeah it’s the same website, does that matter though? The link I added was an interview with head of the German Animal Welfare Association and his views and experience. Even in the article you linked this passage sums up the argument:

> Such behavior, Hoeffken details, is reflected by a polar bear running or swimming in continuous circles, or repeatedly moving its head back and forth.

> Polar Bears International's Steven Amstrup has another point of view. He says that because zoos provide polar bears with their all nutritional needs - something they’d normally have to travel for in the wild, captive bears can therefore live in smaller, more confined spaces.

> "The idea that zoo animals are depressed or stressed opposes the fact that polar bears typically live far longer in captivity than in the wild," Amstrup adds.

The zoos can provide sufficient nutrition and keep polar bears alive for awhile, but is it ethical to keep them in an enclosure that makes them have psychological problems and physical tics? Just because we can keep them alive longer doesn’t mean they have a good life.

The species isn’t going to be preserved by a few dozen bears in zoos that get progressively more inbred, and less like their wild counterparts. The species will be preserved by preserving land and mitigating climate change. But that doesn’t make money.

In the wild, polar bears range over thousands of square miles. Keeping them in a pen is like keeping orcas in a tank. We used to be ok with captive show orcas but we’ve had to adjust based on what we consider ethical.

> It's not possible to offer them any kind of diversion or activity in a zoo that can replace these lost challenges. That's why many polar bears kept in zoos show symptoms of abnormal behavior like permanently shaking their heads, running up and down or swimming in a stereotypical fashion. These acts are ways in which they try to compensate for what they’re lacking.

https://amp.dw.com/en/polar-bears-should-not-be-kept-in-zoos-at-all-says-the-german-animal-welfare-association/a-37843062

They aren’t being raised to be released though. They are being raised to be zoo animals. Bears raised in captivity probably aren’t well suited to surviving in the wild anyway.

>The AZA attempts to play matchmaker with polar bears by studying a number of factors, including genetics, of each one on a case-by-case basis. Through its species survival plan, the AZA is trying to stabilize the population of zoo-owned polar bears, which had plummeted to only 41 last fall after peaking out at 200 polar bears in 1995.

>There are now only 40 zoo-owned polar bears - 17 males and 23 females in the United States. They are spread out across 21 institutions, according to Allison Jungheim of the Como Park Zoo & Conservatory, who tracks captive polar bear trends for the AZA.

https://www.toledoblade.com/local/animals/2022/03/02/newest-member-of-toledo-zoo-s-arctic-encounter-exhibit-is-unveiled/stories/20220302054

They are adorable, but why are we breeding captive polar bears that will never get to roam the arctic and catch seals and do polar bear things? A small enclosure isn’t a place for a bear built to wander.

Yeah that blew my mind too. Apparently the village of Montauk, MO and the state park were named after the Montaukett tribe.

https://web.archive.org/web/20160624071627/http://shsmo.org/manuscripts/ramsay/ramsay_dent.html

> Place name: Montauk

> Description: A village in the central part of Current Township; the second post office established in the county (1860). H.D. Kitchens was an early postmaster. Ephraim Bressie named it Montauk. Since 1927 it has been a state park. The large spring there is the head of Current River. One of the first mills in the county was built there by C.L. Stevenson in 1868. He sold to a Mrs. Hickman and her son in 1881. The locality has been known from the mill owners as Stevenson's Mill and Hickman's Mill, but the name Montauk has always been the official name for the village which was the first county seat. The name is an Indian name of uncertain meaning, according to Hodge. He states that it is the name given a tribe formerly from Long Island and related to the Indians of Massachusetts and Connecticut. Gannett says that it is a corruption of the Indian "minnawtawkit," meaning "island place," or "in the island country." By another authority said to mean "spirit" or "spirit tree." Montauk was first called Bressie's Spring, for Mr. Ephraim Bressie who came to the region in 1830 from Tennessee. (Postal Guide; HIST. DENT, pp. 567, 597; Holbrook; Hodge, p. 934; Gannett, p. 212; J. McDonald)

> Source: O'Brien, Anna. "Place Names Of Five Central Southern Counties of Missouri." M.A. thesis., University of Missouri-Columbia, 1939.

Apparently Ephraim Bressie chose the name. Unclear on whether any Montaukett were there, but apparently a Trail of Tears route went through Dent County, MO around the same time Montauk, MO was founded, so it’s possible. If no Montaukett were there maybe it was the member of another tribe or Ephraim Bressie’s way of honoring them and preserving their name.

https://www.salemmo.com/dent/about/index.php