Otto was born in 1992. He got his name from the former mayor of the municipality of Stuer, Gundolft Otto. This is how FOUR PAWS honored how the politician supported the establishement of our BEAR SANCTUARY Müritz for years.

Otto arrived together with Mascha at our BEAR SANCTUARY. Both brown bears had been kept by private owners in East Germany. For a lot of years, both bears shared a little concrete enclosure of only 150 square meters. That's obviously way to small for bears! Luckily the owners agreed  to bring the bears to our BEAR SANCTUARY. Here, Otto and Mascha shared one big enclosure with lakes and forest. He could finally rediscover his instincts. 

When he was standing, Otto reached around 2 meters. In relation to his body, Otto's head seemed quite small. If you watched him closely, you could see that he was a little bit cross-eyed. All together combined made the typical Otto-look for what he was quite known for among our visitors. 

You could often see Otto playing in the forest with branches or whatever else he could find. He wasn't too picky when it came to finding a toy to play. Otto was a big fan of all enrichments our animal caretaker team prepared for the bears. Another thing he loved: digging hollows to lay down in them and relax.

Since he was usually seen very frequently, we got suspicious when in 2022, he was not sighted for several days. After an inspection of the enclosure, Otto was found dead, resting in a self-dug hollow. He had peacefully found his final rest.