Bärle's Story

The award-winning zookeeper and author of Smiling Bears shares her account of rescuing and rehabilitating a bear held in a Caribbean circus. When a nineteen-year-old female polar bear named Barle is rescued from the inhumane conditions of a circus in the Caribbean and flown to safety in Detroit, zookeeper Else Poulsen—renowned throughout the world for her work rehabilitating abused bears—is on hand to meet her and help her on the road to recovery and self-discovery. Thus begins Barle’s gradual i