I know I’ve talked about about zoos before and I think I might have even said that I will never visit one again, but I now solemnly swear that I will never promise I will never visit another zoo. The issue of captive animals, for and against, it’s been discussed already and now I just want to write about these animals at Orsa Björnpark. Specifically, polar bears and tigers which were the animals I was really keen on seeing in the first place.

But I’ll just say a few words about the zoo first. It’s a bit like Järvzoo, with all the domestic predators (brown bear, wolf, lynx, wolverine) but they also have some ”foreign” animals – kamchatka brown bears, polar bears and siberian tigers. They will add leopards in the summer, but even so, the number of species in this zoo is low. The enclosures on the other hand are very big, which is nice for the animals but not so nice for the photographers. The chain link fences don’t help either; they’re good for keeping the animals in and people out, but a photographer needs to use all the tricks in the book to eliminate the distractions.

My secret weapon was the 300mm f4 lens. Shooting wide open of course, so no margin for error. The weather was on our side because it was overcast, otherwise the chain link fence would’ve been impossible to fade out. It turned out that 300mm was a tad too much at times and I had to make most of my compositions in vertical format, otherwise I didn’t stand a chance to frame in an animal without cutting off any important body parts. The tigers were so close that I ever struggled to get a whole head in the frame! But other than the photographic dilemma, it was pretty amazing to be so close to the magnificent animals. And just when I thought that they were looking really cuddly, one of them yawned right in front of me and revealed a sharp line of pearly whites, complete with 4-inch fangs. So that chain link fence was kinda nice, after all…

The polar bears were in a playful mood. They have an open pool of water that still has some ice cover left, and these two bears decided to reduce the ice cover and started hopping on it until a big raft of ice broke off, making a nice new plaything for them. It was non-stop action with the polar bears so it was hard to keep the pace, especially when I had to nail the composition because the bears were close enough to leave me with a tight framing. Normally I like tight frames, but I would’ve been happy with less of a challenge to nail it in camera… however, it was very nice to see the polar bears, this is only the second time I’ve ever seen them.

I think it counts as a good visit. Out of those two species I wanted to see and photograph, I saw and photographed both. I even got some pictures I’m really happy with, I would’ve settled with one good picture of each but I got much more than that!