Rabat – Two young European brown bears escaped their Wildwood Devon enclosures on Tuesday, heading straight for the food storage. The bears, Mish and Lucy, are both 5 years old, and Wildwood has stressed they “posed no threat to the public at any point.”
Instead the bears enjoyed a lavish meal of a week’s worth of honey, and were returned to their enclosure for a nap within the hour.
The park insisted the bears posed no danger to anyone at any point of their escapade, however, as a precaution, all visitors were escorted to a secure building.
In a statement released by Wildwood, they say “the bears were continuously monitored both on the ground and via CCTV until they calmly returned to their enclosure and fell asleep.” According to standard protocol “police attended the scene, and an investigation is now underway to determine how the incident occurred.”
After eating his fill of honey, Mish made his own way back to the enclosure, meanwhile Lucy took some convincing. She was eventually lured back with the aid of bells and her favourite foods.
The team at Wildwood has confirmed the park remains open to visitors. However, an investigation is now underway to determine how exactly these tricky bears managed to escape.
Wildwood is a 40-acre park located in the heart of Devon, England. Its grounds are filled with gardens, woodlands and an impressive array of rare and endangered animals, such as Eurasian Lynx, Snowy Owls, and of course, the European Brown Bears.
These bears are powerful with short, thick limbs. Males typically weigh between 130 and 350 kg and females between 80 and 250 kg, both with claws up to 10cm long, useful for digging up roots and threatening off invaders of their territory.
These bears are omnivores with a varied diet. Known to consume up to an impressive 20,000 calories during summer and autumn to get them through their winter torpor, it seems Mish and Lucy were just two hungry bears looking to prepare for the coming cold months.
