The Ultimate Stuffed Animal

Free to a good home: One polar bear, stuffed. Good fur. Spokane landmark.

Shot in 1971 by hunter Lewey Lorenzen, the massive blonde bear in a glass case started its afterlife at the Davenport Hotel.

The bear migrated to Spokane International Airport after the hotel closed in 1985. For eight years, it greeted travelers with a frozen snarl.

“You hear about it across the United States,” said Lorenzen, who was told by friends that a waiter recently mentioned the bear to them while they were dining in the Caribbean.

The bear was moved to Walk in the Wild zoo in 1993, when the airport became too crowded.

With the zoo closing, Lorenzen is looking to give the bear a new home - preferably one where it can be admired by plenty of people.

He’s heard from one man who wanted to put it in his factory and another who thinks it would look great in his Moses Lake sporting goods store.

Neither offer seems right.

“The little kids really like to see it,” said Lorenzen, who killed the bruin on the Bering Sea, within sight of Russia. “The airport was really the best.”

Lorenzen doesn’t have room for the bear at home. It measures an inch over 10 feet from tooth to tail, and weighed about 1,500 pounds when it was alive. The glass display box is 9 feet tall and as big around as a Volkswagen.

, DataTimes MEMO: See related story under the headline: The last mile for Walk in the Wild