Bactrian camel girl is called "Nara"

Sloth bear "Bodo" now lives on the other side of the Atlantic

The name search for the Bactrian camel girl was very popular. 55 entrants submitted 132 suggestions, and the choice fell on the girl's name "Nara", which means "sun" in Mongolian. It was chosen by the jury, consisting of animal keepers.

Last week, sloth bear "Bodo" travelled by plane across the Atlantic to the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha (Nebraska). He has now arrived there safely and, after a period of quarantine in a spacious outdoor enclosure, will hopefully provide for sloth bear offspring and thus ensure the preservation of his species. The new home for him was found in consultation with the European Breeders' Book for Sloth Bears. As the population in Europe is very small and in order to preserve the genetic basis in captivity as much as possible, the choice fell on a zoo in the USA. The decision to hand over "Bodo" and end the keeping of large bears at the zoo was made because the husbandry at Chemnitz Zoo was not optimal and it was not possible to breed sloth bears here due to lack of space.

Modern zoos no longer pursue the goal of being a living zoological collection, but instead reduce the number of species in order to offer their animals more space.

However, the bear enclosure at Chemnitz Zoo is not deserted, as the bear macaques still live there and are happy to have the enclosure to themselves. Some remodelling and embellishment work is currently underway.

Opening hours of the zoo: 9 am to 7 pm, last admission 6 pm