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Polar bear twins to stay together
Twin polar bear cubs orphaned when their mother was shot earlier this year are to be allowed to grow up together in Australia following an agreement between a marine theme park and zoo authorities.
Twin polar bear cubs orphaned when their mother was shot earlier this year are to be allowed to grow up together in Australia following an agreement between a marine theme park here and zoo authorities in Canada and Japan.
The one-year-old twin brothers arrived at the Gold Coast theme park Sea World from Canada last month but one was to be eventually shipped to the Oga Aquarium in Japan where new polar bear facilities were under construction.
Sea World campaigned to keep the twins together for their welfare and announced here Monday that a unanimous agreement had been reached allowing the cubs to remain.
The cubs were orphaned in May this year when their mother was shot dead after threatening villagers in a remote community in northern Canada.
"They've had to endure a fair bit of hardship," explained Sea World's marine sciences director Trevor Long.
"They lost their mum at a very early age and they've had to survive on the bond and the link between each other and we feel at this point in their young life we shouldn't be taking that away."
In return Sea World has agreed to help Oga Aquarium find a replacement polar bear and to aid with expertise on transport and care.
The two cubs were originally nicknamed Couer and Star but will now be called Hudson and Nelson after the Hudson Bay Bay region of Quebec and the Nelson River.
As wild-born bears they will provide valuable blood lines to the worldwide captive polar bear breeding program.
"They are very very important globally because of their genetics," said Long.
"The animals may have to go to another zoo for breeding and we may have to bring a female here."
