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| Kulu is on his way |
Up until a few days ago, Kulu lived with his mother Aurora and her twin sister Anana. His father Lee is currently in Louisville KY. Moving Kulu now will allow the zoo to bring back Lee or maybe another male before the spring breeding season. Lee is the son of the late Aurora who was born in Salt Lake City and the late Yukon, who was born in the Cincinnati Zoo.
Kulu was born November 28, 2019. He spent the first months in the den with his mother, and by the time he was ready to come out into the public eye, the Pandemic had closed all the zoos. I finally got to see Kulu for the first time in June of 2020.
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| Kulu at six months |
Earlier this year, the zoo introduced Kulu's Aunt Anana into the mix, and the three bears got along very well.
I visited the Columbus bears last week, and found Aurora and Kulu playing wildly in the water with their toys. Anana was napping. It was hard to tell the bears apart, as they are so close in size. Aurora still has the telltale signs of being a nursing mother on her chest, and a faint brown paint dab on her left paw.
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| Kulu on the left, Aurora with the fire hose |
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| Playing around |
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Kulu and Aurora
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Aurora seemed to have the toy most of the time,
with Kulu trying to steal it. |
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| Kulu, top, kisses his mom. |
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| Aurora with the cone. |
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| Aurora balances the toy. Kulu watches. |
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| Aurora with the cone. |
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| Is Kulu trying to distract his mom so he can steal her cone? |
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| Aurora with the toy. Kulu wants. |
Kulu and his mother would fight over the toys, making a game of it. Aurora really liked playing with the flat fire hose, making it snake around in the water. She played with the orange traffic cone as well. Now she will only have to share the toys with her sister.
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| Aurora with assorted toys. You can see the brown mark on her paw |
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| Aurora with the fire hose |
I descended the steps to the underwater viewing, and it was quite spectacular, with the mother and son wrestling in front of our eyes.
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| kulu on the left |
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| Aurora |
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| Kulu on the left |
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| Aurora soars. You can see the signs of nursing on her chest. |
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| Aurora on the right. See the mark on her paw. |
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| Kulu on the left. |
When Kulu and Aurora were tired of playing in the water, they wandered over to where Anana was sleeping, giving her a greeting as each went by.
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| Anana was napping, Aurora greeted her sister as she passed by. |
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Kulu on the left, with the driftwood.
Aurora center, Anana right, sleeping.
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| Kulu scratches himself on the driftwood. |
Mother and son strolled back to the shore of the big pool, and curled up for a nap, Aurora playing for a bit with a yellow floatie.
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| Aurora with a twig, Kulu sleeping. |
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| Aurora |
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| Naptime. |
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| Aurora has a soft pillow. |
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| Kulu yawns |
Anana walked past her dozing sister and nephew to the dock area, and just sat quietly there, posing for the visitors.
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| Anana wakes up, and strolls to the other side of the habitat. |
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| Anana investigates. |
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Anana posing
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I suspect Aurora and Anana will miss Kulu, but it was reported that the twin sisters were having a good time playing together in the water over the weekend. Now they won't have to share their toys with a youngster.Maybe Kulu's new home will be a zoo not far from me, so I can visit.
While bringing father Lee back from Louisville may have been the plan, I don't know how the uncertainty of the AZA accreditation of the Columbus Zoo will affect that. The zoo has appealed the AZA ruling to rescind their accreditation. While Columbus is a world class zoo with an excellent polar bear habitat, the threatened loss of accreditation comes about because of financial improprieties by executives who are no longer there, and allegations about possible involvement of the former director in questionable dealings with wild animal traders. Since these situations are in the past, have been properly addressed, and seem to have been resolved, the zoo is appealing the AZA action of taking away their accreditation.
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