Polar bear cam: Ontario habitat shows frolicking bears to the world

Henry the polar bear rests next to his meat popsicle at the Cochrane Polar Bear Habitat in Cochrane, Ont. seen on the new EarthCam live stream on April 13, 2016. (EarthCam)

Polar bears snacking on meat popsicles and swimming in the pool are just some of the things you can see thanks to the Cochrane Polar Bear Habitat’s new EarthCams, broadcasting four live feeds.

The Cochrane Polar Bear Habitat in northeastern Ontario has more than 566,000 square feet with four enclosures and five holding rooms. It’s currently home to Ganuk, a six-year-old male polar bear that weighs about 900 pounds, and Henry, a three-year-old male polar bear from Australia that weighs about 600 pounds. It’s also the only captive bear facility in the world that is solely dedicated to polar bears.

“Our facility is a really natural environment and we wanted to be able to show people what polar bears are really like on a day-to-day basis,” said Karen Cummings, the manager at the habitat, located about 100 kilometres northeast of Timmins, Ont.

The cameras will provide a fun look into the Habitat for people from all over the world and will give them a chance to see the bears licking away at meat popsicles or rolling around with balls and large cans. Cummings hopes that people will see that the Polar Bear Habitat is a place where polar bears can essentially be themselves and live a life as normal as possible.

“Our bears voluntarily do things because they want to do them, not because we make them,” said Cummings, “Happy polar bears are just naturally entertaining.”

She hopes that as people watch the animals, they will begin to ask questions about the current state of polar bears.

According to Cummings, there are far more ice-free days now in the five polar bear nations – Canada, the United States, Greenland, Norway and Russia – than there were in 1989. This has caused polar bears to go without food for a lot longer than they used to and has resulted in polar bears weighing, on average, almost 100 pounds less than they did in 17 years ago.

The big worry is that polar bears in the areas of Hudson’s Bay, Ont. And James Bay, Ont. will start to travel into towns in search of food. Only a few months ago, a polar bear wandered into the Moose Factory dump in search of food and was shot and killed. According to Cummings, a polar bear hasn’t wandered into Moose Factory in over 15 years.

“We don’t know if it’s just this year, time will tell,” said Cummings, “But a lot of data is pointing to that this is recurring.”

The cameras will also let the staff at the Habitat see how polar bears act without people being there. Cummings related it back to Stephen Hawking’s Grand Design, which says that outcomes can be changed by adding an observer. The hope is that by taking the visible observer out, the polar bears will go about their days as normal.

The EarthCams will be staying up for the foreseeable future and the Polar Bear Habitat will be keeping their Facebook updated when the bears can be seen playing with toys or even swimming.