Polar Bear: Ice-ice, Teddy!

The world is going nuts about Knut - a baby polar bear who has his own video pod cast, a song written about him and is being featured on the cover of Vanity Fair with Leonardo DiCaprio.

Born in Berlin Zoo last December, and abandoned by his mother, Tosca, zoo officials intervened, choosing to raise the cub themselves amidst protests from animal rights activists, who insist that Knut be put to sleep by lethal injection! What rights could matter more than the right to live?

The polar bear, the world’s largest land predator, lives in subzero temperatures, where everything is frozen, even time itself – going by the immobile hands of your watch, unless you own one of those Rolex watches sported by famous explorers.

The polar bear is white, right? Wrong! Its skin is actually black - to soak in the sun - and is covered by pigment-free hollow hairs to trap heat. It’s the sun’s reflection off the hairs that makes the bear appear white - a perfect camouflage for the white world of pack ice terrain. And when it gets unbearably (pun intended) cold, the bear covers its black muzzle with a paw to check heat from dissipating.

Sometimes when polar bears live in zoos that are in a warmer climate, they can have algae growing inside the hollow guard hairs of their fur. This lends a greenish tinge to their fur.

Besides being waterproof, the hollow hairs also prevent matting down when they swim in water.

They can cover more than 100-Kilometer stretches without rest, dog-paddling with their head and much of their back above water, their blubber helping keep them afloat.

Polar bears travel distances of up to 40 Kms a day, floating on ice floes in search of prey, using their acute sense of smell and excellent underwater vision for detection. They wait patiently for hours, at seal breathing holes. When one surfaces, they pounce and kill it with a single bite to the head or a blow from the massive, heavy paws.

Polar bears don't drink water. They get all the liquids that they need from the animals that they eat.

Spring is the mating season but the embryo development is put on ‘hold’ till late autumn when mother bear will dig a den in which to give birth to 2 to 4 baby bears.

Cubs are fed by their mother for at least two years. Knut’s mother may have shirked her duties but Thomas Doerfleinwas, his minder, went beyond his. Meanwhile, Berlin Zoo now has 15,000 visitors a day queuing up for Knut’s twice-a-day ‘public appearances!’

Copyright © 2007 Noël Gama
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