ZooToyohashi · JP
Brown Bear & Malayan Sun Bear House (Nonhoi Park)
Tucked into the green hills of Toyohashi's Nonhoi Park (the Toyohashi Municipal Park of Zoology and Botany), the Brown Bear & Malayan Sun Bear House sets two of the bear family's most contrasting members side by side: the enormous Ezo brown bear of Hokkaido and the tiny, nimble Malayan sun bear of Southeast Asia's rainforests. It is a small enclosure but a cleverly paired one, built around the difference in size, habits and ancestry of its two residents. The appeal here is comparison. The Ezo brown bear is the largest land mammal native to Japan and a lover of water, while the Malayan sun bear is the smallest of all bears and a deft climber with long limbs and sharp claws. Watching a heavy, laid-back brown bear soak in its pool and then turning to a slender sun bear scrambling up its posts makes the full range of the bear family easy to grasp in a single visit.