Lobbying underway for Canada to save Arturo the polar bear from Argentina’s stifling heat

A couple of Canadian zoos have taken some stick over their treatment of elephants in their collection, which has resulted in plans to send three to a California elephant sanctuary.

But now animal lovers are lobbying for a Winnipeg zoo to give refuge to a polar bear reportedly suffering in an Argentine zoo.

Arturo is languishing in the Mendoza Zoological Park and apparently not doing so well, according to Maria Fernanda Arensten.

Hot weather and poor living conditions are taking their toll on the 29-year-old bear, she told CBC News.

A video purportedly depicting Arturo was posted on YouTube. It shows a bear moving jerkily near the top of its arid-looking compound, with a shallow pool half-filled with water in the foreground.

"He looks so sad. He really looks in pain," said Arentsen, who hails from Argentina but now lives in Canada. "The weather, the conditions, you can imagine it — a polar bear in a desert, with a swimming pool 50 centimetres deep."

[ Related: Another penguin dies at Calgary Zoo ]

The rocking motions are a potential sign of abnormal behaviour, Bill McDonald, chief executive officer of the Winnipeg Humane Society told CBC News.

"This bear is doing what's called stereotyping or stereotype movements," he said. "It's basically going insane."

Polar bears don't belong in an area of hot weather like Argentina, said McDonald.

Protesters have demonstrated outside the Mendoza Zoo for the last two weeks demanding Arturo be moved, CBC News said. Arentsen said she has written the Argentine government and the Canadian embassy in Buenos Aires pleading that the bear be moved to a cooler climate.

Officials at Winnipeg's Assiniboine Park Zoo told CBC News they offered to take Arturo. The zoo houses a new Polar Bear Conservation Centre.

"We have been informed by the Mendoza Zoo that, although they appreciate our offer, they have elected not to relocate their remaining polar bear at this time," Tim Sinclair-Smith, the zoo's director of zoological operations, wrote in a statement to CBC News.

[ Related: RCAF asked to help transport three Toronto zoo elephants to California ]

"We have let them know that our offer still stands and we will of course keep the public informed if anything further develops."

The humane society also asked Ottawa to put pressure on Argentina's government in hopes it could persuade the Mendoza Zoo to change its mind.

The polar bear tussle mirrors efforts by animal lovers to find more suitable homes for elephants living in Toronto and Edmonton zoos.

Toronto city council voted in 2011 to send three elephants in the city's zoo to the Performing Animals Welfare Society sanctuary in California, with the RCAF handling transportation on a C-17 cargo jet.

Meanwhile, officials at Edmonton's Valley Zoo are resisting pressure to send their ailing 38-year-old elephant, Lucy, to the sanctuary, arguing she is too old to survive such a move.