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1.17.2001
No polarity here: Trixie, cub bonding just fine
If all goes well, officials at the Roger Williams Park Zoo hope the public can
view the polar bear cub, born last month and now weighing about 8 to 10 pounds,
in early April.
By KAREN LEE ZINER
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — He —
or she — is already furrier, fatter, and famous.
Gaining at least a pound
a week, the new polar bear cub at the Roger Williams Park Zoo has passed the
critical one-month mark, and plumped out from the size of a wee chipmunk to
about a foot or more in length and 8 or 10 pounds, zoo officials say.
If all goes well, the public
will be able to see the cub in early April at its outdoor exhibit and pool.
By then, there may be an answer to the big question: Is it a male or a female?
Meanwhile, as a hidden camera
captures rare footage from inside the cubbing den, the antics of this baby bear
and its interaction with its 500-pound mother, Trixie, have flagged the interest
of national polar bear experts.
A scientific organization
known as the Bear Taxon Advisory Group (or Bear TAG) intends to study the videotapes
of this cub, one of three polar bear cubs born in captivity in the past year,
for a better understanding of maternal denning behavior, early cub development,
and basically, how a mother polar bear raises her young.
"Wildlife biologists
in general don't know what goes on in polar bear dens," says Diana Weinhardt,
chairwoman of the Bear TAG, which is an organization within the American Zoo
and Aquarium Association.
"They can tell you
everything you want to know about what happens after a mother and cubs leave
the den to start walking back to the ice," says Weinhardt, but "since
it wouldn't be safe for the bears or the biologists" to film inside a birthing
den in the wild, until now, those behaviors have remained pretty much a mystery.
Of immediate environmental
note, Weinhardt and Providence zoo officials say, the new video footage may
help answer questions about the impact of proposed Arctic oil exploration on
the declining population of polar bears in the wild.
According to zoo officials,
for the estimated 20,000 to 27,000 polar bears in the wild, that proposed oil
exploration "poses the most immediate threat to their survival."
The video is expected to
help scientists "predict how disruptions, such as oil exploration, may
impact polar-bear survival," zoo officials add.
Weinhardt, who has been
studying bears for 20 years, says she hopes that this new polar bear footage
can be compared with existing footage of other bear species, "to do a comprehensive
study of all the [eight] bear species."
The camera in Roger Williams
Park first caught images of the newborn cub on Dec. 12. Although zookeepers
had heard tell-tale squeaks, the videotape confirmed the cub's birth.
Since then, visitors to
the zoo's Web site at www.rwpzoo.org
have been treated to video images of the cub and its mother. Last week, Discovery.com
News did a feature on the cub.
The latest footage shows
that the cub "is attempting to walk and crawl," under the careful
watch of a "very attentive mother," according to zoo director Bruce
Clark.
"Given the cub's apparent
growth in the past month, it is obvious that Trixie" is showing "strong
maternal instincts," Clark says. "All indications point to successful
bonding."
Amos Morris, the Providence
zoo's general curator, says that he has already learned much about behavior
of female polar bears in their dens.
For instance, the mother
bear "is not as quiet as I would have thought," says Morris. "I
thought they were more kind of lethargic" after giving birth.
But at least in Trixie's
case, the mother bear is "pretty interactive with the cub," constantly
tending to her new offspring. "You'd be surprised how cautious she is,"
Morris says. "She really watches where she places her feet." The video
also shows mother and cub at play, and captures Trixie's dexterity as she picks
up her tiny cub and places it on her chest.
Morris says, "That's
one of the reasons to keep quiet, so as not to startle her," and cause
her "to lose her focus," a situation that could lead to potential
injury or death of the cub.
For those reasons, Trixie
and her cub will remain secluded for at least another 10 to 12 weeks in their
den, off-limits to the public and keepers alike.
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