Traffic cone loving polar bears receive gift from Staffordshire highways team

Polar bears at a wildlife park in Staffordshire have been gifted a truckload of traffic cones to play with from the local highways team.

The new residents at Peak Wildlife Park have been spending hours playing with the orange cones, with staff there describing them as their new favourite toys.

Staffordshire County Council has given the park 30 damaged traffic cones which would have otherwise been thrown away.

Wayne Bridgett and Paul Williams from the highways team in Leek handed the cones over to the wildlife park on Thursday 7 September, and the polar bears have been playing with them ever since.

Zookeeper at Peak Wildlife Park, Reece Greenhow said: "These boys will spend hours and hours in that lake now this morning playing with those traffic cones.

"They won’t get bored of them quickly at all and any kind of toys that are polar bear proofed - even though they will destroy them quite quickly - are great toys for them."

Eight-year-old Hope the polar bear and her two 20-month-old twin cubs, Nanook and Noori, appeared to be overjoyed with their new cones as they tossed them in the air and dived after them in the water.

The bears were relocated to a five-acre habitat at Peak Wildlife Park near Leek back in June after their previous home, the Orsa Predator Park in Sweden, closed down.

David Williams, Cabinet Member for Highways and Transport at Staffordshire County Council, said: "These cones were damaged and had come to the end of their usefulness. Rather than throw them away, we jumped at the chance to give them a new lease of life as toys for the polar bears and as you can see, they love playing with them.

"Our highways teams work hard and are committed to doing work that benefits their local communities, so this was a great opportunity to do something good for the wildlife park and recycle old materials that would otherwise have been thrown away."