Polar Bears Update

Good boy! Good boy! Yeah! So my name is Callan and I am Senior Bear Keeper here at Peak Wildlife Park. Hi! You coming Nori Bear? Coming in? Yeah I'm coming in. So we have recently sent Hope down to Jimmy's Farm and Wildlife Park down in Suffolk. Even before these guys arrived we knew that the separation would have to happen at some point. Generally with polar bears they only live with their mum for two and a half years, pretty standard. It is completely natural but she does drive them off into the wild. So our mama bear did exactly the same thing. She started to tell them they were big boys, she didn't need to look after them anymore. She started to not want to sit with them anymore and then eventually they couldn't sit close to her and then she didn't actually really want them to even be in the same paddock as her. All completely normal things. We did know at that point that it was now time, that she was telling us I need to go be independent now. So this week in the UK has been pretty warm. It's actually fairly on par with what the polar bears would experience out in the wild. Obviously here we can do a lot to help them cope with that warmer weather. So for our beautiful boys what we've been doing is building some ice blocks. We can freeze some of their favourite food into them, so things like sprouts they really enjoy, vegetables as well. There we go. So we'll freeze it all into big ice blocks and then we can hide them around the enclosure. What we do find is that they do enjoy lots of enrichment we can provide to help them stay cool. So fingers crossed they are going to thoroughly enjoy these. Here we go. Oh yeah. If you were on Bake Off you'd be happy with that wouldn't you? And then this one has got one of their toys in it so we'll pop that here. Ice blocks work really, really well because polar bears love ice. It's a really nice way of slowing down their eating so it takes them longer because they've got to pick all the fish out of the ice block. And it should smell really, really strong as well. So this one's got blood on the top which sounds gross doesn't it? But they love it so they should actually know. Well you're cheating, you can actually see us. But they should be able to just smell it all the way from over there and come and find where we've hidden it. It takes them ages to eat them because they're digging the bits out and they really crunch on them. And you can really see them getting involved into it and they just love it, it's a really cute one. Sometimes we give our polar bears just novel items. One of those things that they do seem to really enjoy is kind of the bigger juicy fruits. And pineapples are a really good one. It's a little bit of a novel item, a bit of a treat. It'll have like a really strong flavour that they don't get as often. And as you can see, they're being strong. Hi. Yeah he's like, give me the pineapple. So yeah, we're going to throw in some pineapples for them over the summer harness days. And we're going to give them lots of different things that will keep them nice and entertained. It's not just about the eating, it's the whole process of it. It's a bit of a strong flavour. This is really good for them to have different things every now and then. Is it worth getting up for? You wouldn't laugh him, wouldn't you? Mmm, tasty. Look at that belly. I love to see the joy. So during the time when we were building our brand new red panda enclosure, there were lots of random offcuts of this like really chunky bamboo. And I think the bears are going to love it. So I've been kind of, any little offcuts, I'm like hoarding them all. Some of them are open at the end so we can stuff things inside. And I think the boys are going to love that. They're nice, we like peanut butter, don't we? So we're going to put some delicious peanut butter on some of our salvaged bamboo. And they should float, so they're going to be great. And you guys love peanut butter, don't you? Are we ready? They're pretty excited, yeah. Anytime they see nice things, particularly if it's got delicious food involved. Who's going in first? My bet is on Nanook. Oh, you cheated. Quick. Where's his fun? Yeah. I love when he does this. He's got this little, he's got this really special technique. And he like bends his fingers in such a way that he can just balance it. He's so funny. I love this. You see how he flexes his fingers backwards. So it looks like it went really, really well. They are both in the pool having the best time. Such a cheap and easy thing. Literally off cuts that were going to go in the bin. And these guys having the best time, which is really lovely to see. When Hope started to kind of go, you can't sit with me anymore. And you know, you need to get out of my sight. I'm so glad they had each other. Because at one point they were literally like bum to bum. And just like, don't leave me. And it was so sweet to watch their bond get even closer, if anything. So that was really, really sweet. And I love that. I love that they can be independent, but also play together. And as they're developing, they're playing rough. So they do literally like stand up on their hind legs. And they're really pushing each other. And actually, interestingly, it's Nori that instigates it quite a lot of the time. So if one thinks he's the quiet one, he's the smaller of the two. But he's the one that will kind of run up to Nanook and be like, come get me. Come get me. And what's Nanook going to do? He's obviously going to go get him. They're just so much fun to watch. They're always doing stuff. They're always having fun together. And I just love that relationship. I love how much they love each other. So lovely to watch.