Mother bear adopts cub in northern Canada

Montreal. Researchers in northern Canada observed a rare case of adoption in polar bears when they captured video of a wild female caring for a cub that was not hers.

The images were recorded in November near Churchill, nicknamed the “polar bear capital of the world”, located in the north of the province of Manitoba (center).

“Only 13 cases (of adoption) have been recorded in 45 years,” Evan Richardson of the Canadian Ministry of Environment, who has been studying the largest predator in the Arctic for 25 years, told Afp.

The researchers saw the bear months ago, when it came out of its den. Then it only had one calf, which was tagged with a GPS collar, a common practice to facilitate the study of these mammals.

Richardson said they found the same mother bear again in November, but saw a second bear cub with no ear tag.

GPS collar tracking and observations by Polar Bears International, a polar bear research group, confirmed that the female in question kept both bear cubs with her for several weeks.

The video footage collected shows the cubs looking out over a snow-covered landscape, with the mother pacing back and forth behind them, and a sequence in which one of the bear cubs rushes to join the others.

Both cubs are between 10 and 11 months old and will likely remain with the mother bear until around two and a half years old.

For now, investigators have no information about what happened to the adopted bear cub’s biological mother. But having a maternal figure increases the chances that the offspring will survive to adulthood, Richardson said.

“It really is a story that makes you feel good,” he said. “These polar bears are excellent mothers; they are predisposed to take care of their cubs, and when there is a cub alone in the tundra, crying and whimpering, they take it into their care,” he added.

The polar bear population in western Hudson Bay has declined by 30 percent in just a few decades, from about 1,200 individuals in the 1980s to 800 today, due in particular to the accelerated melting of ice, essential for their survival.

However, there is no evidence to link this adoption with climate change, according to Richardson.

Genetic analysis is being done to identify the biological mother of the adopted bear cub. “There is a good chance that we know who it is,” said the scientist.

For 45 years, more than 4,600 bears have been identified in this region of Canada, making it, according to him, “the best studied polar bear population in the world.”