Barengraben

The Barengraben, or Bear Pit, is a visitor appeal within the Swiss capital city of Bern. It is a undergo pit, or enclosure housing bears, situated on the japanese edge of the vintage city of Bern, next to the Nydeggbrücke and the River Aar. Although nevertheless in use, the Barengraben has been supplemented on the grounds that 2009 by the adjacent Baren Park, a larger and more natural enclosure along the River Aar.

The Barengraben and Baren Park are administered as a geographically discrete a part of the city's Dahlholzli Zoo. The Barengraben is a Swiss background web page of countrywide importance, and is of precise significance in Bern because the bear is a image of both the town and surrounding canton, and is featured in their coat of arms. The undergo has long served as symbol of Bern.

Legend has it that, in 1191, Duke Berthold V of Zahringen vowed to pick as namesake the primary animal his hunt met inside the wood that turned into to be chopped down for his new city. The first statistics of bears being saved within the city come from 1513, when the chronicler Valerius Anshelm defined how the Bernese back home effective from the Battle of Novara, carrying each the captured requirements and a residing bear as spoils of warfare.