By Yael T. Abouhalkah, Kansas City Star Editorial Page columnist

A few months ago, Kansas City Zoo Director Randy Wisthoff told me he was worried about getting a polar bear to roam around in his facility's planned exhibit.

That startled me a bit, considering the zoo had just broken ground on what will be a $10 million, mostly publicly funded exhibit for polar bears. It should be finished in 2010.

But Wisthoff said competition is fierce for the few polar bears that become available to zoos each other.

Now for the good news: As The Star reported Tuesday morning, the KC Zoo will be getting Nikita, a polar bear around three years old.

Wisthoff knows that people love to see polar bears. He expects a large bump in attendance for the zoo in 2010.

That would be the second strong year in a row for the zoo, which has had more than 500,000 visitors this year, its best year since at least 2001.