There’s a new polar bear at Como Park Zoo and Conservatory. The zoo announced Friday that the 4-year-old female polar bear from Washington state arrived at the zoo Thursday evening.

Astra, who weighs 700 pounds, is part of long-term breeding effort to support the threatened species, Como Park’s senior zookeeper Allison Jungheim said.

Astra's move from the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium in Tacoma is part of a plan by members of the Polar Bear Population Alliance to maintain a sustainable and genetically diverse polar bear population in the United States, Jungheim said.

She said polar bears are “a keystone species for a lot of institutions.”

“They're very popular animals. They're very charismatic,” Jungheim said. However, the species “have not had great reproductive success in the past

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