During my visit to the Lofoten Islands and the north of Norway, I also visited the Polar Park Arctic Wildlife Centre [1] in Bardu. You can experience arctic wildlife there, just like the complete name tells us. The park claims that it is the northernmost wildlife park in the world and that you can also see the larger predators there. That's true. It's not exactly cheap, but nothing is cheap in Norway. And it can be even more expensive if you want a special experience, because you can book that too. But let's take it one step at a time.
Herbivores
The herbivores were rather poorly represented. You could see a moose cow from a distance and also a hind very close at a feeding rack. And what was not shown specifically, but what you could see, were of course goats. Yes, goats, because they need them as feed.
Arctic fox
First we went to see the arctic foxes [2], which were also easy to lure. They have become rare in the wild because they have such warm fur and were hunted a lot, but they are not an endangered species. They are probably more threatened by climate changes. These ones were almost trusting. And we were told that some of them had become very fat because they simply didn't have to move much to get their food. But they changed how these artic foxes were fed. In the very large enclosures, the food was always fed in small amounts in opposite parts, so they had to run a lot. All the enclosures are large, and that is good news - for the animals, because they can also evade spectators.
Wolverine
The wolverine [3] could not be lured. That was unusual, not only because it is called Vielfraß ("devours much") in German, but because it had not eaten anything that day. What a pity.
Lynx
I found it interesting how big a lynx [4] is when it has to stretch at the fence for feeding. I remembered that a friend had told me when I visited him and his wife in Switzerland that lynxes are common in the Swiss Jura [5]. The lynx is a serious predator. But they also looked very beautiful. They were also easy to photograph.
Wolf
Then we also saw wolves [6], two types of wolves in fact, some were domesticated or used to people and you can, if you want, buy yourself a very expensive experience to take pictures and have a wolf lick your face; that costs €150 per person or is the licking part extra? And then there is a wild pack of wolves. We heard the wolves howling; I remembered Zootopia [7]. You wouldn't want to experience that in the wild. But here, like in the movie, it wasn't a spontaneous howl, but an initiated howl, in the film it was by the fox, here it was started by people.
Brown Bear
The availability of the bears [8] was played down, as most of them were already in the hibernation phase and therefore they did not want to feed the bears to get them to start hibernating. But then there were several to see. One female bear was very easy to observe. That's why I can show a picture here.
Is this park to be recommended? Yes, if you don't mind zoos, then this park is worth seeing. You can also get to the park by public transport. It is 184 km from Tromsø and 68 km from Narvik. But that's not a long distance for this region. Or is it? In winter conditions, maybe so, although we got through everywhere without problems.
Links and Annotations:
[1] Polar Park https://polarpark.no/
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_fox
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolverine
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynx
[5] The Text is in German, but on the map you can see, where the lynx has been spotted or animal have been killed (red). https://www.kora.ch/de/arten/luchs/verbreitung
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf The article shows a wolf from the Polar Park in Bardu without a fence!
[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zootopia
[8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_bear
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