For the first time in more than 70 years, the bear exhibit at Bear Mountain State Park’s Trailside Museums and Zoo is empty.

Zoo director Kerry Gallagher says the park’s two longtime black bears, Sadie and Pal, died months apart earlier this year. The siblings arrived at the zoo in 2005 as 5-month-old cubs from South Dakota after being kept without a license and raised in a way that made them unable to be released to the wild.

“They came to us when they were 5 months old in July 2005 and lived here for 21 years,” Gallagher said.

Sadie died in March, followed by Pal in October.

“There are no bears in our bear den right now,” Gallagher said, calling the moment bittersweet for the park staff and thousands of annual visitors. Their absence opens the door for a major renovation of the aging habitat, which was built in the 1950s and hasn’t been remodeled since.

Gallagher says the redesign will finally bring the exhibit up to modern standards. Plans include temperature control, safer access for keepers, improved viewing areas and a more natural setting for the animals.

“This is a time for us to make some changes but respecting that history from 1927,” she said, noting the zoo will celebrate its 100th anniversary in 2027.

She emphasized just how important the bears have been to generations of Hudson Valley families.

“The bears are our number one draw because we are Bear Mountain,” she said. “People will park their car and right away ask, ‘Where are the bears?’ We know they want to see them, and we want to have them here.”

Gallagher stressed that this is only a pause — not the end of Bear Mountain’s bear legacy.

“We will have bears again. We are Bear Mountain,” she said. “It’s a little time out to look at this exhibit and think about future bears.”

Bear Mountain State Park is one of the region’s most visited destinations, drawing roughly 4 million people a year. About 450,000 of those visitors stop at the Trailside Museums and Zoo. The bear exhibit has served as a cornerstone of that experience for decades.

While the bear habitat is closed for redesign, the rest of the zoo remains open. Visitors can still see native wildlife including bobcat, fox, porcupine, reptiles, and birds of prey — with a new coyote exhibit coming soon.

The zoo has a suggested donation of $1 per person, which helps fund projects like the upcoming bear enclosure upgrade.