The animal care staff at the Toledo Zoo recently had its first opportunity to examine the polar bear cub born in early December 2009, and the news is – it’s a boy!

Although he weighed only a pound at birth, he has already grown to be over 33 pounds. Both the cub and mother Crystal are doing well, and the zoo expects that he will be on exhibit later this spring in the Arctic Encounter® exhibit.

Now that the sex of the polar bear has been determined, the little fellow needs a name. The zoo, in conjunction with Polar Bears International and the World Wildlife Fund has asked the young people from the North Slope of Alaska to come up with a suitable name for the special little bear.

The North Slope is the region from which the zoo’s other female bear, Nan, was found as an orphan over a decade ago. According to the zoo’s curator of mammals, Dr. Randi Meyerson, “We hope to work together to facilitate a relationship between the children of Toledo who love our polar bears and the children of the North Slope who live with and respect these animals.”

The cub was the only polar bear born in a U.S. zoo in 2009, and his birth is another important step in the conservation of polar bears. Because many populations of polar bears are declining in the wild and as more of their Arctic habitat is lost each year to climate change, every cub counts.

Further updates on the cub, including video, will be available at www.toledozoo.org/animals/polarbearcub.
 

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