San Antonio’s last polar bear lived in Texas without AC. Mr. Pooh died 24 years ago.

A polar bear living under the scorching sun at the San Antonio Zoo with a pool of 73-degree tap water and no air conditioning? That was Mr. Pooh’s life for more than two decades. 

This week, 24 years ago, San Antonio lost Mr. Pooh, one of the world’s oldest polar bears in captivity. He was 31 when he was euthanized on April 14, 1999. 

Mr. Pooh’s living conditions were often too much for some in Texas to bear. 

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He was the subject of several protests by animal rights activists who believed polar bears belong in a northern habitat — or at least deserved a temperature-controlled pool or air conditioning. 

One woman stormed City Hall, demanding action. She had already tried to rally the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which was responsible for inspecting the animal’s living conditions. She even wrote Coca-Cola, thinking the soft-drink company would get involved because it used polar bears in its advertising. 

Mr. Pooh’s death, which did not result from heat, brought an end to the San Antonio Zoo’s polar bear exhibit. The zoo told newspapers at the time that the cost of maintaining a chilled indoor enclosure was too much to continue the practice. 

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Born in 1968, Mr. Pooh was initially captured in a Canadian town, where he had a reputation for scavenging from a nearby garbage dump and wandering the streets. 

He lived at the Metro Toronto Zoo before being transferred to the San Antonio Zoo in 1978. Mr. Pooh was a favorite for visitors, who watched him play in his swimming hole with a giant ball or an empty beer keg. 

Mr. Pooh lived about half of his life with Goofy, his female companion. To help make Mr. Pooh and Goofy comfortable, the zoo staff sometimes put 100-pound ice blocks into their pool, and it fed them buckets of ice embedded with fish. Goofy died of heart failure in 1994.

Even though Mr. Pooh surpassed the average lifespan for polar bears, roughly 20 to 25 years, some raised concerns that he was uncomfortable in the South Texas heat.

Mr. Pooh was euthanized in April 1999, after old age had slowed him down and eventually caused him to lose his appetite. A necropsy revealed he had suffered from kidney failure.

In January, the Kansas City Zoo announced that Berlin, the oldest polar bear living in the U.S. captivity, died. He was 33 years old and lived at the zoo for more than a decade. 

timothy.fanning@express-news.net