| Photograph of caged polar bear, late 1880s |  |
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Live polar bears were in demand as display animals for Victorian zoos and menageries. Whalers would catch them and keep them in cages on board ship until they returned to port. The
awful conditions in which the bears were housed, once back in Europe,
are captured by Aberdeen photographer, George Washington Wilson's,
photograph of a caged bear, taken in the late 1880s.
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| Martyn Gorman · University of Aberdeen · Department of Zoology · © 2002 |