At three months old, the Toronto Zoo's only surviving polar bear cub of 2013 stepped out of his indoor nursery and into a deep drift of snow. He pushed his snout into the powder, pawed snow off his ears and set off to explore. The cub soon had a name too: Humphrey.
A difficult start: birth and intensive care
Humphrey was born on 9 November 2013 to Aurora, one of the zoo's two female polar bears, and the male Inukshuk. Aurora gave birth to three male cubs that day. Zoo staff said she showed "perfect maternal instincts" and tried to nurse each one, but two cubs died within their first 48 hours.
The third began to weaken, and on the following Monday keepers removed him from the den. He went into intensive care, where veterinarians monitored his temperature, took blood samples and fed him a special formula. The zoo's Wildlife Health, Wildlife Care and Nutrition teams worked around the clock through his first weeks. By early January 2014 he had opened his eyes and was taking his first steps on camera.
Humphrey also has a well-known older brother: Hudson, the polar bear at Winnipeg's Assiniboine Park Zoo.
The first-snow video
The zoo filmed the cub's introduction to his outdoor habitat in February 2014, after a run of cold weather and blizzards had buried Toronto. In the clip he plays in a deep mound of snow, buries his nose in the powder and shakes it off his head, a small but important milestone for a bear that had spent his life so far indoors with human carers.
Video: Toronto Zoo Polar Bear Cub Introduced to Snow for the First Time, published by Toronto Zoo.
Naming the cub: Humphrey Piujuq
The public chose the name. From 11 February to 3 March 2014 the zoo ran a "Name the Cub" vote with six options: Humphrey, Orson, James (after James Bay), Lorek, Searik and Stirling. More than 14,000 entries came in, and on 6 March the zoo announced the winner: Humphrey, a name often said to mean "peaceful warrior".
He also received an Inuit name, Piujuq ("Piu"), meaning "good and nice", so his full registry name is Humphrey Piujuq. His public debut came during the zoo's Polar Bear Month, with daily viewing at his outdoor den in the polar bear maternity area.
How wild polar bear cubs grow up
In the wild, Humphrey's first winter would have looked very different. Polar bear mothers give birth in maternity dens dug into snow or earth, either on coastal sea ice or farther inland. Newborns weigh only about 600 grams, with fine woolly hair and pink skin. Litters are usually two cubs.
Mother and cubs leave the den between late February and early April, when the cubs weigh 10 to 15 kg, and stay close by for around two weeks before heading out onto the sea ice. Cubs remain with their mother for up to two and a half years, learning to hunt seals before going their own way.
The IUCN lists the polar bear as Vulnerable, with an estimated 22,000 to 31,000 animals worldwide. Shrinking Arctic sea ice is the main pressure on the species, as our story on polar bears searching for sea ice shows. For a wild mother and cub, see Gerda and her cub.
Related reading
- Mark Dumas and Agee: A Polar-Bear Filming Relationship
- Andrew Manske’s Polar Bear Mother and Cubs in Manitoba
- Gerda and Her Cub: Vera Salnitskaya’s Polar Bear Photographs
- Churchill in Google’s Panoramic Imagery: Looking around the Tundra
Sources
- Toronto Zoo: cub name announcement (March 2014)
- CBC: Toronto Zoo says 2 newborn polar bear cubs have died
- CBC: Polar bear cub unveiled to public at Toronto Zoo
- CTV: Brother of Hudson the polar bear given name
- Toronto Life: Toronto Zoo's polar bear in the snow
- RCI: Toronto Zoo polar bear cub's first steps
- IFLScience: Polar bear cub at Toronto Zoo has first experience with snow
- Polar bear (Wikipedia)
- Photo and video: Toronto Zoo.
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