After years planning, it's finally going to happen. Bears are coming back to Tautphaus Park Zoo.

Wednesday morning, the zoo superintendent broke the news that a big anonymous donation given the day before and it secured two Asian Sloth Bears to be moved to Idaho Falls.

Zoo Superintendent Bill Gersonde says he can hardly believe that he is now able to say that "Yes, the bears are coming." He's dreamed of having bears at the zoo as long as 15 years ago.

On Tuesday, an anonymous donor gave $25,000 to the zoo for the "Bring Back the bears campaign. That now brings the total of the fundraising effort to $227,000 with a goal of $250,000.

And because of the recent donation the Idaho Falls City Council gave the go-ahead to secure taking these bears from the zoo in Little Rock Arkansas.

The location for these sloth bears will be in the Asian Adventure part of the zoo along with the tigers, snow leopards, camels and red pandas.

Gersonde says the "Bring Back the Bears" campaign started just over a year ago, and the money has been raised thanks to generous donations large and small. And it will fill a need that has been missing since Susie the sun bear died in 1990.

Bill Gersonde: "Our guest surveys indicate that bears are one of the most frequently asked for animals here at the zoo and as part of the Asian Adventure the sloth bears as a threatened species will be very important to our collection, allowing greater opportunities for education and also for contributing to the captive population of sloth bears in this country."

The two bears are brothers that were born in 2006 at the Little Rock Zoo.

They will arrive in Idaho Falls this fall and the display will be finished by spring or early summer of 2009.

Eventually, the zoo plans to get a female and take part in the breeding program by raising sloth bears cubs in the new exhibit.

The fundraising campaign is still short 23-thousand dollars, but with the green light from the city council, construction will get underway as soon as possible while the zoo works to raise the last remaining dollars.