VIDEO Polar bear cub's slapstick show on snow
Polar bears / Korea Times file
By Oh Young-jin
A preview of BBC One’s documentary about climate change gives viewers a moment to smile, despite its supposed tragic tone. It involves scenes featuring a mom polar bear with two cubs.
To watch the video:
The narration has it that the female cub imitates her mom in a waiting game with their main prey, seals, which have to surface every 30 minutes to breathe. The cub is seen paws and belly on the snow right behind her mom, learning the trick of survival perhaps for her future cubs.
Then, the waiting game is over as a seal raises its head from a hole in the ice. But guess what?
The hole it came out is not the one beside the mom and young Ursa but from another near where her brother has been frolicking. The unprepared male cub is caught off guard by a rising dark head with two beady eyes, falling back once and then again.