Malayan sun bears are small, highly intelligent bears with complex behavioural needs that are poorly served by traditional zoo enclosure designs.
Sun bears are cognitively sophisticated omnivores that spend most of their wild time foraging in structurally complex forest environments, excavating insect colonies and extracting honey. Captive environments that replace this complexity with barren concrete produce bored, stereotypic animals that pace, sway, or bar-chew repetitively. The evidence from the Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre demonstrates that large, naturalistic enclosures with substantial climbing structures, live trees, leaf litter, and honey-based enrichment produce dramatically better welfare outcomes. Rescued bears at this facility, despite often arriving from severely deprived backgrounds, successfully relearn natural foraging behaviours given appropriate environments. Traditional zoological institutions housing sun bears should be benchmarked against these outcomes.