Nora, the polar bear who became a favorite of Portlanders in 2016 and 2017, is back at the Oregon Zoo after a few years away at a zoo in Utah, officials announced Wednesday.
The 5-year-old bear arrived late Tuesday and is settling in out of public view for now. She is expected to make her public debut sometime in April.
“Seeing Nora this morning was so exciting,” Nicole Nicassio-Hiskey, the zoo’s senior marine life keeper, who worked closely with the young bear during her previous time in Portland, said in a statement. “She has grown into a beautiful bear. Her coat looks great and she seems very comfortable already – she has been taking dips and splashing around.”
Nora was born at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium in November of 2015. Her mother, Aurora, abandoned Nora after just six days and the tiny cub was raised by a team of zookeepers who came to be known as the “Nora moms.”
The young bear has had to overcome a number of hurdles. As an infant, she developed metabolic bone diseases, an ailment she has since overcome, but one that is expected to result in lifelong skeletal issues. Nora still walks with a bit of a bow-legged gait because of the illness.
When she moved to Oregon in 2016, she suffered from mental health issues and was prescribed a number of pharmaceuticals to help her overcome anxiety.
Nora was briefly paired with Tasul at the Oregon Zoo, an older animal that keepers hoped would help the cub become socialized to other bears, but Tasul died shortly after the younger bear’s arrival.
Many of Nora’s early-life troubles were chronicled in a five-part series from The Oregonian/OregonLive called “The Loneliest Polar Bear.”
In 2017, Nora was moved to Utah’s Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake City where she met Hope, another bear originally from Ohio of roughly the same age. After years of keepers worrying whether Nora would ever get along with others of her species, the two developed a strong companionship.
In January of 2019, Nora’s keepers in Utah discovered that Nora had broken her humerus, a large, weight-bearing bone in her front leg. An orthopedic specialist was flown in from Texas to perform a first-of-its-kind surgery on the ailing bear, inserting a rod into the broken bone. After months of healing and physical therapy, Nora made a full recovery.
Earlier this year, Hogle Zoo announced that Hope would be moving to a zoo in Chicago and a male bear named Nikita would be moving to Utah. That meant Nora needed a new home just as the Oregon Zoo was completing construction of its brand new polar bear exhibit.
The new habitat is a vast improvement over the previous polar bear space, featuring large, open areas, several saltwater pools and numerous opportunities for zoogoers to observe Nora working with keepers and biologists who plan to conduct research on polar bears at the zoo.
Many of the keepers who worked with Nora during her previous stay in Portland will be looking after the bear as she gets used to her new digs.
“The entire team is super excited to have her back,” Nicassio-Hiskey said. “We can’t wait to see her explore her amazing new habitat.”
Kale Williams wrote the award-winning series ” The Loneliest Polar Bear ” for The Oregonian/OregonLive that he later crafted into a book that will publish later this month.
