Come on in, little one… the water’s freezing!
BRRR! It ain’t half cold in here, mam, and we’re nowhere near the Arctic!
This four-month-old polar bear cub was pictured making a great splash in Scotland where it lives with its mother Victoria.
And, as this dip in the water with mam at a wildlife park shows, everything is going just swimmingly.
While the chilly water could put off some animals, in these Arctic temperatures polar bears feel, well, right at home.
Mother Victoria took her cub, who is about four months old, for a swim at their ten-acre enclosure.
And, like any mother taking their child for a swimming lesson, Victoria kept a watchful eye on the cub at all times, guiding the youngster as they played in the water. At one point, the cub gave its mam a playful bite on the neck. And, with its wet fur sticking up, the youngster was left with a rather unflattering hairstyle.
Once they were done in the water, it was time to dry off – and Victoria demonstrated how to roll in the bushes to get rid of the moisture from their fur.
Keepers had to wait almost three months to catch a glimpse of the cub before it took its first nervous steps into the snow last month.
It is yet to be named as keepers have so far been unable to determine its gender.
The cub and Victoria – who arrived at the Highland Wildlife Park near Kingussie, Invernessshire, 2009 – share the enclosure with the zoo’s two male polar bears, Walker and Arktos.
The keepers had left the young family to themselves for weeks amid concern over the cub’s health. At the time, a spokesman said: ‘Polar bear cubs have a high mortality rate in their first weeks due to an undeveloped immune system and the mother’s exaggerated need for privacy. Any disturbance risks the cub being killed or abandoned.’
There are no polar bears in Irish zoos. In 2003, it was decided the Dublin Zoo’s ones were to be moved to a zoo in Hungary.