Polar Bears are one of the most amazing animals, surviving in one of the harshest environments on the planet. A study that was published in the Journal of Wildlife Management has revealed information about how polar bear mothers give birth and take care of their cubs in more detail than has ever been seen.

The study was conducted by a team of researchers from the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, the Norwegian Polar Institute, the University of Toronto Scarborough, and Polar Bears International.

It took place over nearly 10 years in Svalbard, Norway. During this time, the researchers used GPS collar data as well as video footage taken by remote-operated cameras to learn about polar bear behavior while pregnant and during the initial time after the birth fo their cubs.

Dr. Louise Archer is a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Toronto Scarborough and she works with Polar Bear International on this study. In comments given to IFLScience, she talked about how females typically return to the same areas each time they are getting ready to give birth and dig dens.

“She’ll enter her den, typically anywhere from October to November and during that time her fertilized egg will begin developing. It’s only about 60 days of active gestation in polar bears, quite a short active gestation period, and the cubs will be born from December through to January.”

She went on to talk about the initial days after giving birth:

“They’re extremely underdeveloped when they’re born, what we call altricial. They’re only about 600 grams, so very tiny, and they’re almost hairless with just a very faint covering of fur. They’re also born blind, so they’re really reliant on their mother during that time.”

The video footage shows that mothers are quite different from each other when it comes to the type of care they provide. Some mothers will stay in the den for extended periods of time and others will abandon the area surprisingly quickly. She explained:

“In some cases, we saw females that emerged and only hung around for a very short time. We saw one family that left after only two days at the den, while another family stayed for a month. We saw a lot of this variation and that was very striking.”

This new information exposes the need for further study of these amazing animals. Understanding why there is such diversity in the type of care that they provide will help to better protect this species going forward, especially as climate change continues to impact the regions where they live.

Dr. Archer explained some of the many questions that this study revealed:

“Now we’re looking at what are some of the driving forces behind this variation. We also saw some really different behaviors. For example, two females moved dens after they first came out of their original den. So the mother dug a new den in the snow and moved her family there. Again, that generates new questions: Why did she move? What were the conditions in the original den that caused her to move elsewhere? What are the consequences of this for the polar bears and for their cubs?”

In many cases, studies like this show reveal just how little we actually know about a subject. The more we learn, the more researchers expose the complexities of a species so that any efforts to protect them can be better planned.

Check out some of the video footage from the study here:

I can’t believe how small polar bears are at birth.

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