Throughout the world, bears are mistreated, used for consumption, entertainment purposes and killed for trophy hunting. In addition, natural bear habitat is decreasing and becoming fragmented and isolated. As a result, wild bear populations are under threat. This trend should be stopped! 

The Bear Forest in the Netherlands, is a two hectare semi-natural habitat, developed by Alertis - fund for bear and nature conservation to give former mistreated bears a better life. The type of management used by Alertis focuses on a presentation of the bears’ natural habitat, which restores the mistreated bears health and joy in life. The bears currently living in the Bear Forest are proof of the success of this approach.

This website is the result of a study on the development of the Bear Forest. The main goal of this sanctuary is to give mistreated and abused bears or bears which cannot be placed anywhere else and  cannot be returned to the wild, a shelter in a semi-natural environment. The Bear Forest at Ouwehand Zoo in Rhenen is used as a blueprint for the information on this website because years of experience have proven that this facility is a success. The bears that live in the Bear Forest are mainly abused bears from various European countries. Some of them are former circus bears, or dancing bears and some were used in the film industry. A few of the mistreated bears showed stereotypic behaviour on arrival in the Bear Forest. This has decreased and even ceased over the years. Additionally, the amount of time spent on natural behaviour has increased.

The concept of the Bear Forest in Rhenen has proved to be successful and was the example for several similar projects in different countries across the globe. The enclosure is of course large, has many trees or is part of a forest, provides water for the bears to swim and has minimum management interference. For i.e. the enclosure is not subject to cleaning as often as a ‘conventional/concrete’ bear enclosure would be. Daily cleaning becomes weekly or even monthly cleaning. Following this procedure, the number of indoor enclosures is brought to a minimum because the animals spend almost all of their time outside and are not regularly kept or locked indoors.

Many people contributed and still contribute to this website. The information has been carefully gathered from various sources and experts working with bears around the world. See Acknowledgements  for details. Please read the Terms & Conditions carefully before entering this website.  

© 2008 - 2013 ALERTIS – fund for bear and nature conservation