Why fire stations are shipping hoses to polar bears in Cochrane, Ont.

The bears here have recently received some fire hose from some firefighters in Ottawa, if I'm not mistaken. Why would a polar bear need fire hose? Tell me what that's being used for. 100%. So we've had a couple projects recently involving some fire hose. One of the things that's really helpful about it is that it's like a recycling style project. So these fire hoses can't be used by the fire department anymore. So it is nice and durable. The plastic part of the fire hose, so it stands up to a lot of the weight of our polar bears, for example. Henry right now is about 1,306 pounds. So we're looking for some durability in that and fire hose presents a very good durable surface. What is the fire hose that you just got from Ottawa being used for right now? What was that turned into? So right now that fire hose, majority of it just went to that raft project and we put it out on the lake for the bears and Gannock spent at least a couple hours trying to figure out how to sink it or an attempt to sink it. They did end up breaking a couple pieces off of it and Henry then contributed to the remainder of the destruction. So we're going to definitely have to go in for raft 2.0 using some more of the fire hose that we got. We have Gannock and we have Henry. So Gannock, he's our 16 year old. He has been here the longest of any bear that's lived at the habitat. He was born at the Zoo Sauvage in Quebec and when he aged out of his mother's care, he moved here. And when I say he aged out of his mother's care, it's a completely natural process. So in the wild, mom's going to take care of her cubs for about two, two and a half years and then she's going to say, all right, it's time to go. So that's something we still see in human care. So when she started showing those signs, he moved over here. And then a very similar story with Henry, except for the distance traveled to get here was quite a bit farther. So Henry's our 13 year old. He was born at SeaWorld in Australia on the Gold Coast. And so when he aged out of his mother's care, they reached out to us and it was a three-day journey to make it all the way up to Cochrane. But after that, he's been here for over a decade now and has experienced snow and is very used to all of the wonders of Canadian weather. Wow. So he would have never seen snow before coming here? No, not naturally forming snow or ice. They do at warmer facilities sometimes have like snow machines and things like that. But our subarctic climate here at the Habitat was definitely an interesting experience for him. What is the life of a polar bear in general? For sure. So in the wild, they're, you know, really having to focus on their food sources. So polar bears are still hunters, catching ringed seals primarily, using an incredible sense of smell. So the bears, when you see them, will have a very, very large nose and that's what they're going to use to help with that. But our boys, of course, don't have to worry about spending a lot of their time hunting because we're here for them. But instead we'll do things that help mimic natural behaviors for them. So with the raft, for example, you might notice in some of the video clips that there's kind of like a circle in one of the corners. That circle was there very on purpose from our animal care team. So in the wild, they're waiting at the seal breathing hole for the seal to pop up. And that's when they're going to grab it. So creating them that surface, that's like, like a sea ice platform, right? The best we can. And then providing that hole for them. It's kind of like creating the same structure that a bear could see in the wild when hunting. And our bear, Gannock, did immediately stick his paws in his face right through that hole of the platform. So it was pretty interesting.