Ivan the polar bear has been having relationship problems recently.
The strapping 300-kg, 10-year-old lives at Asahiyama Zoo, a municipal facility on a wooded hillside in the city of Asahikawa, central Hokkaido. The zoo is Japan's most northerly, and 15 years ago it was near bankruptcy. Today, crowds come from as far away as Tokyo, Seoul and Beijing to see the animals — and they often make a beeline for the polar bear house.
Enthralled, they watch Ivan swim gracefully in his pool and devour buckets of horse meat, hokke mackerel and the occasional head of Chinese cabbage. Parents snap pictures. Small children often recoil in shock when he approaches them just centimeters away on the other side of acrylic windows, his big black eyes staring right at them and his every nose-wriggle and translucent hair clearly visible.