VIDEO An orphaned polar bear cub has found a foster mother in a situation that has only been documented a few times in the wild
The mother and her two cubs, photographed by Canadian researchers, PHOTO: / AFP / Profimedia Images
Researchers monitoring wild polar bears in northern Canada witnessed an extremely rare event: a female bear adopted a cub that was not biologically hers, the BBC reports.
The five-year-old bear and her cubs, about 10–11 months old, were spotted and caught on camera during the annual polar bear migration along the western coast of Hudson Bay near Churchill, a city famous for its surrounding polar bear population.
“It's unusual,” Alyssa McCall, a researcher at Polar Bears International, said in a video. “We don't really know why this happens … but we do know that it doesn't happen very often,” she pointed out.
The researchers say this is only the 13th known case of adoption among the 4,600 bears studied over nearly five decades in the area.
The female bear was captured for the first time this spring when she emerged from her maternity den. At that time, she had only one cub, which scientists marked for study.
In the fall, she was spotted again, but this time with two cubs – the original cub, which had already been marked, and another unmarked one. Researchers aren't sure what happened to the new cub's biological mother, but are trying to identify her through genetic testing.
Researchers say both bear cubs appear healthy
“Bears need all the help they can get these days given climate change,” Evan Richardson, a polar bear researcher at Environment and Climate Change Canada, said in a video statement. “If females have the opportunity to take in another cub, care for it and successfully wean it, that's a good thing for the bears in Churchill,” he added.
Polar bears in the wild only have a 50% chance of surviving to adulthood, but having a mother to care for them improves their chances.
Researchers said both bear cubs appear to be healthy and will likely stay with their mother until they are about two and a half years old.
Next, the family is expected to head for the sea ice, where the cubs will learn from their mother how to hunt seals and survive on their own.
“It's just comforting to know that bears are looking out for each other,” Richardson pointed out.
