It came from @planetpics on Twitter.

“A beautiful picture of a polar bear cub getting a lift across the water from its mom!” Life on Earth/@planetpics
Couldn’t help but wonder if that cub will survive the next few months, let alone to adulthood.
Generally, polar bear mothers den on pack ice, and the cub would be kept on the ice while the mother hunted from that platform. Polar bears can swim, but not well, and not far, usually. They cannot hunt while swimming. To eat, they wait on the ice for seals to come up for air, then grab the seals.
Lack of hard ice platforms, pack ice, means mother polar bears can’t hunt to feed their cubs. While an adult polar bear can swim a distance to find ice, the cubs can’t. And if the adult doesn’t find hard ice, they perish. Long swims are deadly to cubs.
It’s a cute pic, and we hope momma bear is swimming to an ice platform and can feed that cute little cub so it grows and flourishes.
We know the odds are against it.







The truth is so grim, it is hard enough to face it. When I discover some innocent who doesn’t realize, I hesitate.
I do feel a current, though, of people losing their taste for extravagance, seeking simplicity. I hope….
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