A polar bear mother in northern Canada has amazed scientists after being seen caring for a tiny cub that wasn’t her own. Researchers first spotted the five-year-old bear in the spring with one cub. Several months later, during the autumn migration near Churchill, Manitoba, she appeared again — this time with two cubs. One was already tagged, while the other wasn’t, leading scientists to believe she had adopted the second cub somewhere along her way.
Adoptions like this are extremely rare among polar bears, which usually raise only their own young cubs due to the enormous energy required to survive in the Arctic. Experts are not sure what happened to the cub’s biological mother, but genetic testing may help answer that question. With climate change making hunting and survival more difficult, the adopted cub’s chances of living may now depend on this unexpected act of kindness and care. The bear and her cubs are expected to head onto the sea ice soon, where the young will begin learning how to hunt and survive on their own.
