POLAR BEAR TWINS

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 138, 12 June 1936, Page 6

POLAR BEAR TWINS

A ZOO TRAGEDY MATERNAL INSTINCT DEAD (From "The Post's" Representative.) SYDNEY, May 30. Twin Polar bears were born at the Taronga Park Zoo, Sydney, this week, but owing to parental neglect, died within forty-eight hours of their birth. The mother jealously guarded her offspring at first and would allow none of the zoo officials to approach them to help in their care. Under natural conditions she would have covered the babies with snow and would have stayed with them and abstained from food until they were old enough to help themselves. But a life in captivity has blunted her maternal instincts. She covered them at first with straw the keepers had provided for that purpose, but within a few hours bundled them out into the open air and was more concerned with looking after herself than them.

' The he%d keeper, Mr. Charles Camp, noticed that the mother had left her babies out in the cold. He rushed them to the zoo hospital. Later he took them home with him, so that they could be kept warm and fed with warm milk. They appeared to be pulling round under his care, but the next morning he found them dead. Zoo officials regret the loss of the cubs, which are always difficult to rear in captivity. "Bears are peculiar with their offspring and have to be watched very closely," said Mr. Camp. "At first, the mother took the keenest finterest in them, but then, for some reason, just discarded them and pushed them out of the den."