After first observing female polar bear X33991 emerge from her den with one young cub, researchers spotted her a few months later with a second cub in tow. Though they were surprised at first, scientists have since confirmed this is a rare case of polar cub adoption.
Polar Bear Adoption
When the mama bear was originally spotted coming out of the denning area in Wapusk National Park in March, researchers fitted her cub with an ear tag. She was seen again in mid-November along the coast near Churchill, Manitoba, with two cubs – one without a tag.
Captured on video, the mother is around 5 years old, and both cubs are estimated to be approximately 10 to 11 months old. They will typically stay with their mothers for about two or three years, or until they reach the maturity to hunt on their own.
Though scientists are unaware of what happened to the adopted cub’s biological mother, genetic samples collected from the cub could help them solve this mystery. Researchers hope to determine whether the DNA matches that of a female bear they’re already tracking.
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Polar bear mothers have also been documented swapping or picking up extra cubs from another litter, so it’s possible that the cub’s mother is still alive.
“There must be some sort of confusion going on,” said Evan Richardson, a scientist with Canada’s environment and climate change department, in a video statement provided to the media. “But we really think it’s just because they’re so maternally charged and such good mothers, and they can’t leave a cub crying on the tundra, so they pick them up and take them along with them.”
The mother bear is outfitted with a GPS tracking collar, and members of the public can track the family as they wander across the snowy landscape.
“When we got confirmation that this was an adoption, I had a lot of mixed feelings, but mostly good,” stated Alysa McCall, director of conservation outreach and a staff scientist with Polar Bears International, “It gives you a lot of hope when you realize that polar bears maybe are looking out for each other out there.”
