Arctic Bear Mother Adopts Cub in Rarely Recorded Case

Scientists monitoring free-roaming polar bears in northern Canada witnessed something remarkably uncommon this autumn: a mother bear taking in a cub that was not biologically her own.

The five-year-old mother and her 10- to 11-month-old cubs were spotted and captured on camera during the annual polar bear journey along the Western Hudson Bay near Churchill, Manitoba, an area known for its polar bear population.

"It's unusual," remarked a researcher with a polar bear conservation group. "We don't really know why it happens...but we know it is a rare event at all."

It's only the thirteenth documented instance of fostering out of nearly five thousand bears studied for almost fifty years in that region.

The mother bear was initially tagged as she emerged from her birthing den this spring. Initially, she had one cub, which scientists marked for research.

In the autumn, she was spotted once more, but this time with a pair of cubs - the initially tagged cub and a second without a tag. Scientists are uncertain what happened to the second cub's birth mother, but they are trying to locate her using DNA analysis.

"The bears need every advantage they can get in the current era with climate change," commented a polar bear scientist. "If females have the opportunity to take in an additional youngster and care for it and see it to independence, it's a positive development for the population."

Polar bears in the wild only have a 50% chance of living into maturity, but having a mother caring for them improves their odds.

The young bears appear to be healthy, according to experts, and they will likely stay with their mother until they are about 30 months of age.

Following this, the family is expected to head out to the frozen ocean, where the cubs will learn from their mother bear how to catch prey and live on their own.

"It is heartening to know that the animals are looking out for each other," concluded the scientist.