Orphaned Polar Bear Gets Second Chance At Life After Being Rescued By The Arctic Workers She Loves To Hug

May 14, 2021

Bear cubs in the wild rely entirely on their mothers to hunt for them and provide food. They also need their moms to teach them how to hunt on their own once they are old enough. Tragically, a young polar bear cub was orphaned on the island of Bolshevik in the Arctic. The cub was found by a group of mineworkers who recognized that the bear had lost her mother and knew that if they did not take action the cub would die. 

The first word about the polar cub at the workers’ base came in February of 2021. Apparently, the bear had been hanging around the base, probably attracted by the smell of food, so the workers decided to feed her. After a few months, the bear cub was so familiar with the mineworkers that she was completely comfortable with their presence and would even try and play with them.

This behavior can be seen in a video provided by The Siberian Times. In the footage, the polar bear cub is climbing up a ladder and trying to peek her head into a nearby window. The man recording the video can be heard laughing loudly as the bear expertly climbs the ladder. It is quite a sight to see! 

Eventually, the bear comes down off of the ladder and makes her way over to the men. She rushes over to one of them and jumps up for a hug. The man pets the bear lovingly as if she were a large dog. The bear seemed completely relaxed and even happy to be around the humans in the video.  

The director of Royev Ruchei Zoo in Krasnoyarsk, Andrey Gorban, spoke with The Siberian Times about the situation with the bear cub. Gorban said that the mineworkers were in contact with the zoo and animal experts to plan a rescue because they would be leaving the island and did not want the bear to be abandoned.  

Gorban said, “All we knew was that the cub’s mother died and that it was months ago when it discovered the base attracted by the smell of food. Shift workers saved its life, the cub had no chance to survive. For right or wrong, but they fed the endangered animal and through that tamed it.” Because the animal was tamed it could not be released back into the wild.

Communication between Bolshevik and Gorban’s team was a bit of a challenge. “The workers could only get in touch with us at the end of their work stint, as they had no connection at the base. So we were told that the men were leaving back to the mainland, and the cub stayed there alone. Our only hope was that they left quite a big open rubbish site, so there was a chance that the cub could feed off it for weeks,” Gorban added. Fortunately, the bear had plenty of food and was rescued safely.

The gold miners were in contact with animal experts as soon as they realized the bear cub would eventually grow into a 500-pound predator. The bear was taken to the Moscow Zoo where it will get a second chance at a new life.  

The main reason the bear was taken to a zoo and not released in the wild is that she never learned from her mother how to hunt. According to the World Wildlife Fund, polar bears spend about half their lives hunting and are only successful around 2% of the time. This is because polar bears primarily hunt for seals, although they do scavenge for carcasses and will settle for birds and vegetation when they can find it.

The rescued polar bear cub was most likely able to find the worker’s base due to an exceptional sense of smell. Polar bears can smell their prey up to a kilometer away. They can even use their sense of smell to find the holes in the ice that seals use to breathe, then they patiently wait for a seal to surface and attack. 

Polar bears are classified as marine mammals and rely on the Arctic ocean to survive. This puts them at great risk now that the polar ice caps are melting due to global warming. These amazing animals are losing their habitat and therefore their ability to survive in the wild. 

Polar bears are considered a vulnerable species and about 22,000 of them remain. They are protected in Russia and National Geographic reported that it is illegal to feed or interact with them. This is because they are unable to survive in the wild after being tamed by humans. However, the mineworkers who rescued the cub were not in any trouble and they did in fact save the bear’s life after it was orphaned. 

Do you think the mine workers did the right thing by feeding the cub? Have you ever seen a bear behave this way? Let us know what you think and be sure to send this on to your friends and family.