The Great White Bear Read Online Free PDF Page B

rarely four, almost never one. On most occasions, as in this instance, there are two.
    When they were born, seven months after the mother had been impregnated, they were blind and weighed roughly two pounds, but they were already covered with a downy coat of fur—so gossamer-fine that newborns are sometimes inaccurately referred to as "naked" or "hairless"—and their tiny paws were tipped with sharp claws. That latter feature enabled them to clasp more tightly to their mother's coat as they suckled. To our taste buds, the milk they ingested would be rich and rank: the fat content of polar bear milk is on average a little over 30 percent, compared to just 4 percent in human breast milk. But it is rich for a reason: high in protein as well as fat, it enables the cubs to grow rapidly.
    At roughly thirty days, their eyes opened. Twenty days later, they sprouted their first teeth and started to develop a sense of smell. Despite the confined space, however, there was little, beyond the body odors of the three bears, for that newfound sense to discern: the mother kept the den spotless, immediately burying the cubs' feces and urine in the snow. (She, consuming no food and imbibing no liquid, expelled no waste of her own.) By the time they were two months old, the cubs began exploring their surroundings and adding to them, carving out their own small chambers as they tumbled with each other and crawled over and around their mother.
    Now, a further month later, they are ready. Already the cubs have grown to sixteen pounds in weight, and in providing the nourishment that has enabled her offspring to grow so rapidly, the mother has depleted most of her resources. The cubs are set to make their entry into the outside world, and she is desperate to eat. Arching her back, she powers upward, breaking effortlessly through as much as three feet of hard, wind-packed snow. "A human could
never
break up through that ceiling," marvels Thomas Smith, "but polar bear mothers have no problem."
    Having created a hole in the roof of the den, she sticks out her nose and sniffs the air. Sensing no danger, she slowly emerges, and, after confirming that the path is clear, with a soft, low grunt she signals to her cubs that it is safe to join her. With that, they scramble through the opening and for the first time experience the world outside the den.

    It sounds on paper the slightest of shelters for the most powerful of predators. A hole in a snowdrift, sealed by more snow, scarcely seems sufficiently substantial to provide privacy and protection for one of the largest truly carnivorous mammals on Earth. And yet, the hostile environment is an impediment to all but the most curious and determined, and the monochrome surroundings render the dens invisible to all but the keenest, most experienced eyes.
    "During the months of December and January, there's no evidence of any dens anywhere," says Mike Spence, a Cree tracker, owner of the Wat'chee Lodge near the polar bear denning area south of Hudson Bay, and a guide for photographers and naturalists wanting to see bear dens, and mothers and cubs emerging from them. "It's snow, it's creeks, it's willows, it's all of that. But then in February and March, well, a lot of it is experience, but you're looking for certain things. You know where some of the locations are, you travel, you track, there's been some disturbance so you look for that. If you see tracks, follow the tracks. It's difficult, but you keep at it."
    Photographer Thorsten Milse, whose book
Little Polar Bears
is a pictorial paean to the inherent adorableness of furry white bear cubs, willingly admits in his tome that without the expert guidance of Mike's brother Morris, "I would not have been able to take a single shot of a polar bear, nor would I have been able to catch a glimpse of white fur."
    Finding the location is just the beginning; while the emergence of females and cubs can be approximately predicted at a given location down to a