FUR YOUR EYES ONLY
FIRST PICS OF POLAR BEAR CUBS
SEA World staff are celebrating after 16-year-old polar bear Liya gave birth to tiny twin cubs.
The second-time mother welcomed the cubs into the world last Wednesday inside a maternity den.
Director of Marine Sciences Trevor Long said the “rat-sized” cubs would stay in the den for up to 10 weeks.
“It’s still early days and certainly the first week is critical but we’re over that mark,” he said. “We’re monitoring them 24 hours a day, they’re sleeping for about an hour then they’re awake for an hour and a half ... we can watch them suckle from mum, watch them explore and start to move around.”
It’s the second successful breeding at the theme park after Henry was conceived by Liya and Nelson in 2013.
He has since moved to Canada where he lives at a research sanctuary, but Mr Long said it was still too early to determine if the twin cubs would make the same move as their half-brother Henry.
“These cubs are critical to the long-term survival of polar bears,” he said.
“They’re born very small but they will grow quickly ... they have to do that to survive in the wild.
“They’re also born blind, in the first two weeks we’ll see them open their eyes ... they’re so tiny they could never fend for themselves.”
Mr Long said both adult male polar bears – Hudson and Nelson – spent time with Liya but they are confident Hudson fathered the twins.
“Due to the time, it’s an eight month gestation, she repeatedly mated with Hudson,” Mr Long said.
“We believe Liya will bring them out of the den in about the second week of July which is when we will be able to determine the gender ... they will be in our ‘cub kindy’ from about the start of September.”
Mr Long said the theme park would hold a naming competition, just as they did for Henry in 2013.