First of three polar bear cubs to be introduced

The Columbus Zoo and Aquarium’s polar bears gave birth to the only captive cubs in the country last year. And after spending months in a den and behind the scenes, one finally will emerge today.

New mother Anana and her 5-month-old cub will go on public display at the Polar Frontier exhibit when the zoo opens at 9 a.m. A special announcement will follow at 9:10 a.m. and be streamed on Facebook Live.

The cub, born Nov. 8, is one of three baby polar bears at the zoo. Each weighs about 60 pounds. Their genders aren’t known and none has yet been named.

The other two cubs are twins born Nov. 14 to Aurora, who also gave birth to famous cub Nora in November 2015. Nora is now at the Oregon Zoo.

Aurora’s twin cubs aren’t quite ready to go into the exhibit yet, but updates should be coming soon about their debut, zoo spokeswoman Jennifer Fields said. The two mothers and their cubs eventually will be on a rotating viewing schedule, meaning all three cubs will never be on display at the same time, Fields said.

Anana and Aurora are 10-year-old sisters who were born at the Toledo Zoo & Aquarium and came to Columbus from the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium. The father of their cubs is Nanuq, who arrived in Columbus in 2012 from the Buffalo Zoo.

Even in captivity, the survival rate for polar bear cubs in the first weeks after birth is only about 50 percent. Anana, in fact, had given birth to twins in November, but one cub died a week later.

There are 20,000 to 25,000 polar bears left in the wild, and the species is considered vulnerable because of the disappearance of sea ice, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s website.