{"id":326267,"date":"2025-12-20T10:02:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-20T10:02:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/326267\/"},"modified":"2025-12-20T10:02:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-20T10:02:07","slug":"paragliders-in-lucky-escape-after-landing-near-staffordshire-polar-bear-enclosure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/326267\/","title":{"rendered":"Paragliders in lucky escape after landing near Staffordshire polar bear enclosure"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Staff at Peak Wildlife Park in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.expressandstar.com\/news\/local-hubs\/staffordshire\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Staffordshire<\/a> noticed two motorised gliders heading directly towards the enclosure containing Nanook and Nori on Tuesday lunchtime (December 16).<\/p>\n<p>Rushing towards the compound armed with non-lethal firearms in case the worst happened, keepers were relieved to see the gliders had managed to divert their landing just to the right side of the bears\u2019 border, with dramatic CCTV footage showing how close they were to the animals.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1e770983-1fd7-4fce-b330-7e109cc862db.JPG\"   alt=\"A pair of wayward paragliders had a lucky escape after mistakenly landing just inches from two male polar bears. Image: PA\/Peak Wildlife Park\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"w-full max-w-none\"\/>A pair of wayward paragliders had a lucky escape after mistakenly landing just inches from two male polar bears. Image: PA\/Peak Wildlife Park<\/p>\n<p>Park director James Butler told the Press Association: \u201cThe animal keepers noticed the motorised paragliders and initially assumed they were going to land in one of the fields behind the park.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAfter a few minutes, it became clear they were descending lower and lower, and at that point a radio call was made.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey then cut their engines and appeared almost certain to land in the field containing the bears. At the last moment, however, they diverted their course, presumably after spotting the two very large\u00a0polar\u00a0bears directly beneath them.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPolar\u00a0bears are among the world\u2019s most dangerous predators and had the paragliders landed there, the outcome could have been tragic, rather than fairly comic.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The four-year-old polar bears arrived at the park near Leek in August 2023 after their original home at a park in Sweden was closed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Staff at Peak Wildlife Park in Staffordshire noticed two motorised gliders heading directly towards the enclosure containing Nanook&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":326268,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[18102,2652,50,90,2783,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":{"0":"post-326267","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-latest-videos","9":"tag-local-hubs","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-science","12":"tag-staffordshire","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-unitedkingdom","16":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=326267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/326268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=326267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=326267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=326267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}