Bears in zoos require large, complex enclosures with diverse enrichment to meet their behavioral needs, and welfare standards for zoo bears have advanced significantly with ongoing challenges remaining.
Zoo bear welfare varies enormously across facilities from genuinely good welfare in large naturalistic enclosures with diverse enrichment to severe welfare compromise in small, barren exhibits. Bears' intelligence, foraging motivation, and large space requirements make welfare provision challenging and expensive. Stereotypic pacing - while reduced by enrichment - is often not eliminated in zoo bears, suggesting that even well-enriched exhibits may not fully meet behavioral needs. Welfare-honest assessment requires measuring behavioral welfare indicators including stereotypy frequency and diversity of behavior expression rather than simply documenting enrichment provision.