NC Zoo will get second polar bear

The N.C. Zoo will get a second resident for its 2.5-acre polar bear exhibit that opened last fall.

Nikita, an 8-year-old male polar bear at the Kansas City Zoo, will come to North Carolina in the coming months.

Nikita will join Anana, a 15-year-old female who arrived early last fall from the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago and who will remain in North Carolina until a new polar bear exhibit there is completed.

Together, the bears will inhabit an exhibit area that underwent $8.5 million in renovations before reopening last fall and features a stream and pool, an ice cave and a den where a mother could give birth and raise cubs.

When work began on the expanded exhibit in 2001, the zoo had two polar bears and hoped to get as many as six. The two bears, Aquila and Wilhelm, died within weeks of each other in 2013, and a third, Patches, who arrived later that year died last fall, at the age of 26.

Nikita’s move to North Carolina was recommended by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums’ Species Survival Plan Program, which manages threatened and endangered species. Less than 20 percent of zoos accredited by the association have polar bears, and only 60 polar bears are on exhibit in the United States.

Nikita was born at the Toledo Zoo. He arrived in Kansas City in 2010 when he was 3 years old.

This story was originally published June 24, 2015 at 6:56 PM with the headline "NC Zoo will get second polar bear."