‘Hot Tub’ Bear to Make Big Splash at Little-Known Zoo

There will be no Jacuzzi in Samson’s new digs at the Orange County Zoo.

When the 600-pound black bear wants to take a bath, he will have to settle for a 16-foot, unheated pool. And instead of having the run of neighborhood avocado trees, the internationally known “hot tub” bear from Monrovia will eat dry kibble from a zookeeper’s pail.

In return for the hospitality of a soon-to-be-constructed 2,800-square-foot pen that Samson will occupy as early as June, the celebrity bear is likely to bestow a new level of visibility on Orange County’s little-known zoo, which will nearly triple its size as it accommodates him.

“He will put the zoo on the map,” said Jeff Weir, a spokesman for the state Department of Fish and Game, which is holding the bear in Sacramento. “He will give it a separate identity.”

Samson’s saga began last summer when he was videotaped lounging in the spas and swimming pools of Monrovia, which abuts the San Gabriel Mountains. Experts suggested that the bear had emerged from the wild to pick avocados from residents’ trees. And once he had sampled civilization, he probably would keep returning, Weir said.

The videotape sparked a weeks-long search for the bear that ended in his capture by the Fish and Game Department in September. For a while it appeared that Samson would be killed.

But after an outpouring of public sentiment from across the state, Gov. Pete Wilson offered a reprieve. Samson was taken to a holding facility near Sacramento, where he now resides. And the tiny Orange County Zoo in Irvine Regional Park began lobbying to give him a home.

“I was watching TV with my family when the news came on about Samson,” said Orange County Zoo curator Forrest DeSpain, whose wife grew up in the same Monrovia neighborhood where the bear appeared. “The next morning, I called Fish and Game.”

The zoo had been discussing a major expansion for some time. Why not, DeSpain suggested, make the bear its centerpiece?

Plans call for the facility to expand from three acres to eight, including Samson’s large outdoor pen, which will feature a swimming pool and waterfall.

The cost of the expansion, DeSpain said, is about $120,000, most raised from corporate and individual donors.

“Most people in Southern California already knew about Samson and were aware of his need,” DeSpain said of the dozens of companies and individuals who have contributed money, goods and services.

The Orange County Zoological Society is spearheading a campaign to raise the remaining $11,000 needed to bring the bear south. In addition to the sale of Samson postcards, posters and teddy bears, the organization is enlisting the aid of civic groups and schoolchildren.

Robert Nafie, headmaster of the Clairbourn School in San Gabriel, which has raised $4,500 for Samson, said students strongly identify with the bear. “It’s touched something in all of them,” he said. “Here was this bear reaching out, obviously in need, who was not afraid to make contact. In lots of ways, that rings a bell with young people who often must reach out to their parents.”