Two cubs die as mother polar bear turns on her three newborns
Three new polar bears were found in the polar bear enclosure of the Toronto Zoo Wednesday morning. By Wednesday night, one was dead and two others were clinging to life in the zoo’s intensive care unit.
Zoo staff are working “valiantly” to save the two cubs, wrote the zoo in a prepared release. “They will continue to be hand-raised and we are hopeful that they will both get stronger but they are far from being out of the woods at this time.”
Born prematurely, the three tiny cubs were rejected by their 10-year-old mother Aurora. Polar bears are known to reject — and eat — their cubs if they appear weak at birth.
By Thursday night, a second cub had died. If the third survives, it will need to be hand-raised by zookeepers for the next 12 months, at which point they will likely be too large to interact with humans. (Photo: Toronto Zoo/Handout)What a bitch.
This is animal instinct. It’s not an act of evil. A polar bear’s natural habitat is harsh, and weak cubs will die, and the mothers would rather kill their own babies than let nature take them slowly or more savagely.
