Main content
Sorry, this episode is not currently available

Percy am Mathan B脿n/Percy the Polar Bear

This episode features Percy, a ten-week-old polar bear living with its mother in the Canadian Arctic.

Investigative guides which reveal amazing facts about members of the animal kingdom. In this episode, the focus is on Percy, a 10-week-old polar bear living in the Canadian Arctic.

He was born during the winter in a den which was up to 40 degrees warmer than outside, where the temperature drops to minus 60 degrees Celsius and it is dark for months. Polar bears have thick coats, a 10cm thick layer of blubber which acts like thermal underwear, and huge fur-covered paws which are like snowshoes. Polar bears are also hunters, and their paws have 20cm long claws!

They need to eat 2kg of fat a day - the same as eight packs of butter! Percy's mum provides lots of nourishing milk and she forages over huge areas, sometimes covering up to 25km a day. Hunting is a tough business in this vast white landscape and only one in 20 hunts are successful, but if mum can find a seal pup under the ice, it would be an excellent meal.

25 minutes

Broadcasts

Featured in...