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San Francisco’s mayor, emissaries from President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration and hundreds of local school children arrived at the San Francisco Zoo on Oct. 6, 1940, to celebrate a massive expansion.
Instead, they witnessed a scene of unforgettable carnage.
“A battle to death, a battle of the kind that shatters the white silence of the Arctic ice floes, yesterday intruded upon the dedication ceremonies at the new Fleishhacker Zoo and christened the polar bear pit in blood,” Chronicle reporter John Upton Terrell wrote the next day in front-page coverage.
More than 80 years later, the story reads like war correspondence: Two polar bears engaged in a death match, while zoo staff and police scrambled to intervene. The scene went on for a half hour, leaving visitors horrified and one animal dead.
The bear’s enclosure was part of a $2 million Works Progress Administration infrastructure project built in the 1930s that still houses animals today. A Chronicle story this week revealed safety concerns at the zoo, including a recent incident in which a grizzly bear escaped its den and chased a keeper. But the 84-year-old space saw disaster on the very first day.
The violence was completely unexpected. The Chronicle’s articles leading up to the grand opening of the bear, lion and monkey enclosures — which more than doubled the zoo’s footprint — read like promotions. A family-friendly morning was promised, with choral groups, free food and animals frolicking in the October sun.
The exhibit’s largest attraction, a polar bear named “Big Bill,” didn’t get the message.
Oct. 6, 1940: A polar bear named Big Bill killed his mate Min during the opening day of the polar bear and lion enclosures at the San Francisco Zoo. Keepers and police used guns and a hose to try distract the bear. This photo ran on the Chronicle front page the following day.
Oct. 6, 1940: A polar bear named Big Bill killed his mate Min during the opening day of the polar bear and lion enclosures at the San Francisco Zoo. Keepers and police used guns and a hose to try distract the bear. This photo ran on the Chronicle front page the following day.
As a crowd gathered around the new open-air pit, Bill took refuge in the enclosure’s cave. When a female bear named Min tried to join him, Bill growled a warning. But Min persisted and Bill eventually emerged, striking and grappling with the female bear, as a smaller male bear named Jerry stood to the side.
“The crowd, jamming against the railing around the pit, was delighted,” Terrell wrote. “Everyone thought the bears were having a pleasant Sunday romp.”
But then Big Bill clawed Min on the shoulder, creating a large gash that sprayed blood and launched a battle that stretched a full 30 minutes of escalating mayhem.
Min barely had a chance to fight back.
Big Bill, who reportedly had already killed one previous mate, unleashed repeated violence, eventually locking his jaws onto Min’s neck, and thrashing until the female bear was motionless. Policemen emptied their guns against the walls of the enclosure, zoo director Fred Chatton rained rocks from above the pit (“they might as well have been throwing peanuts,” Terrell wrote) and zoo keepers fired hoses at the bear.
“The roar of the fighting bears was deafening,” Terrell wrote. “Women spectators screamed, men’s faces were immobile with shock, children watched in terror.”
Big Bill ignored them all. Once Min stopped fighting, the larger bear slowly dragged her body to the enclosure’s new water feature and held her head underneath for five minutes.
Finally Chatton secured an ammonia gun, firing the noxious liquid at the bear until it retreated. But it was too late for Min. The female bear was dead.
The polar bear murder dominated front-page coverage under the headline “Death Duel,” with eight photos of the fight running in the paper. A short story announcing the WPA’s transfer of the new construction to the city — the reason journalists were invited in the first place — landed at the bottom of Page 12.
Polar Bear Uulu, pictured in 2016, was one of the oldest polar bears in captivity, before she died at the San Francisco Zoo at age 36 in 2017.
Polar Bear Uulu, pictured in 2016, was one of the oldest polar bears in captivity, before she died at the San Francisco Zoo at age 36 in 2017.
The Chronicle followed the next day with the headline “Big Bill is not Grieving.” Min’s carcass was removed, and the newspaper reported that “attendants said Big Bill was not expected to be slain for his sins.”
It was nowhere near the end of problems for the WPA grottos. In the mid-1940s a lion attacked a keeper, and in 1949 a different polar bear mauled a house painter who tried to stick a sugar cube through the bars; his arm was amputated.
The San Francisco Zoo continued to display polar bears in the same bear pit until 2017, when Uulu, the zoo’s last polar bear, died at age 36.
Reach Peter Hartlaub:
phartlaub@sfchronicle.com;
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