Mum says that we are an endangered species, which sound a bit scary to us. We’re not sure what ‘endangered’ means but anything with ‘danger’ in it frightens us. We think it might mean that us polar bears may not be around at all one day. I hope that the ‘one day’ is a LONG LONG time away.
"Yeah, I hope it’s not tomorrow because we’re going to Poppy’s birthday party tomorrow.”
“SNOWBALL! What’s more important? Surviving or going to Poppy’s birthday party?”
“I guess it’s more important to survive, but I REALLY like birthday parties, and she’s going to have a humongous birthday cake made of ice cream....”
“Snowball, you are just SO shallow.”
“Snowflake, you are just TOO serious sometimes, lighten up!”
Anyway, all that ‘endangered’ stuff aside, we thought we’d tell you a few facts about us Polar Bears.
Polar bears can cope really well with the very cold – we get MINUS 40 or 50 sometimes. And sometimes it stays like that for days or weeks. We love the cold, and the ice.
We have a thick layer of fat, called Blubber, that keep us warm – in grown-up bears that can be as much as 9-10cm thick. We also have two layers of lovely fur.
In very cold snow storms, mum digs a temporary shelter in a snow bank and we all curl up tight and warm together.
Polar bears have more problems with overheating than we do with getting cold. Even in very cold weather we can overheat when we try to run – imagine trying to do a 100 metre sprint with a huge fur coat on!
Us polar bears love to swim and are really good swimmers. Polar bears have been known to swim up to 160 kilometres at one go. Now that IS a long, long way.
Grown up polar bears can actually run as fast as 40 kilometres per hour – and some younger, leaner polar bears can run for up to two kilometres without stopping – but if they’re not careful they can get too hot.
Us polar bears are VERY clean. We clean ourselves after every feed. We lick ourselves clean, or mum does and we also use snow to clean ourselves, instead of water. We roll in the snow and rub it into our fur.
Male polar bears sometimes fight each other when they both fancy the same female!
Unlike brown and black bears, we don’t hibernate in the winter. Only pregnant polar bears make a den, like mum did when she was having us. The rest of the polar bears remain active all year.
There are some polar bears who kind of hibernate – but they are the ones that live on the shores of a place called Hudson Bay, when there are periods of no ice and so no food. It’s called ‘walking hibernation’ when their metabolism slows right down, but they don’t go to sleep. They just slow down.
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