The Share Your Polar Bear Story just got adorable! Abigail Connor, age 12, shared both her take on the legendary polar bear tale and a little about herself:
“Hi! My name is Abigail Connors. I am 12 years old and I am in 6th grade. I love sports and I also love animals and learning more about them. I wrote a report about the polar bear in my Computer class:
Polar Bear
Scientific Name: (Ursus maritimus)
I think that polar bears are one of the most interesting animals because they can be so misunderstood. They can be found in the Canada tundra where roughly 60% of the world’s polar bears live. They also live in Alaska, Russia, and Norway. There have been 19 populations of polar bears in four different ice regions in the Arctic.
Polar bears usually hunt the ringed seal. They wait for the seals to surface to breathe at openings in the ice or holes in the ice called aglus. A seal cuts about fifteen aglus in the ice using its fore flippers during the fall. The seals will surface every five to fifteen minutes through those holes; that is why polar bears get so much food. Polar bears can locate the breathing holes with their strong sense of smell. They must be patient because seals may sense that a bear and go somewhere else.
Female polar bears usually have twins but there can be triplets and singlets. They’ll give birth to their first litter when they are between four and eight years old but usually five or six. The babies weigh only about a pound, and are usually only twelve inches long. They only mate on the ice in April or May, but the fertile ova doesn’t implant until the following fall. That is why polar bears are so interesting.
Abigail Connors
6th grade”
A+ report, Abigail! Thank you for sharing with us. If you’d like to be featured on our blog or win a prize, send in your entries to more@explore.org along with your age, the town you live in, and a sentence or two about yourselves. Share your stories and passion for polar bears today!
