Tragic scenes at SeaWorld on the Gold Coast
In tragic scenes, one of the two polar bear cubs born at SeaWorld on the Gold Coast in April has sadly passed away, despite the best efforts of staff at the theme park.
The cub, a female, was the smaller of the two.
Sea World director of marine sciences Trevor Long said staff were devastated with the loss, telling ABC News, “Staff are taking it very, very hard as you can imagine.”
The alarm was raised on Thursday after staff were concerned the cub was not growing at a healthy rate or getting enough milk. The struggling cub was retrieved and put in a humidicrib, but despite recovery efforts it sadly passed away.
Dr Long said the surviving cub was progressing well, and noted that this kind of loss was not entirely uncommon for animals like polar bears and other large carnivores.
"[In] 2013 Liya had two cubs and she raised them both for 12 hours then abandoned one cub and chose to raise one cub," he said.
"However this time she has gone eight or nine days and we take that as a positive situation."
The remaining cub and Liya are under 24-hour-a-day observation.