Sea World’s born and bred polar bear cub celebrates 1st birthday

IT seems like just yesterday the Gold Coast was thrilled with the news of our very own born and bred polar bear cub, but adorable Henry is growing up.

EXCITED as any one-year-old is for cake and toys, Sea World’s adorable fluff-ball Henry the polar bear celebrated his first birthday in style at Sea World yesterday.

As excited onlookers watched on in delight, Henry played in his pen with his mum Liya, eating his icy birthday cake decorated with slimy mackerel, his favourite food watermelon and even chocolate.

HENRY’S FIRST BIRTHDAY CELEBRATIONS

Director of Marine Sciences Trevor Long said the birthday boy had enjoyed most of his weekly treat allocation in one day.

“He is like your typical one-year-old, very excited and could not decide which present to go to first,” Mr Long said.

“We got him a yellow buoy ball that he would only stop playing with when he wanted some more of his cake.

“He has had plenty of treats as part of his enrichment program -he has a weekly limit which I think he might have reached in one day.”

One year ago tomorrow Henry captured international attention when proud Polar bear Mum Liya had given birth — the first Polar bear born at Sea World and only the second ever in Australia.

“When he was born he weighed only 600 grams, just a little ball of fluff but is now he weighs in at around 125 kilograms,” Mr Long said.

“He is constantly growing. I think the time of biggest growth was from six weeks old to five months old and even now every week we see him getting a little bigger, although he is still extremely cute.

Henry gets stuck into his ice birthday cake. Picture by Scott Fletcher

“He is currently about a third of the size of his mum Liya and about a quarter of the size of his dad Nelson who weighs in at 500 kilograms.

“Henry might be very good at entertaining guests, but he also has an important role of being an ambassador and reminding people about polar bears in the wild and what people can do to help mitigate climate change.”

Mr Long said as Henry continues to grow there will come a time he will say goodbye to his mum as she allows him to face the world alone.

“Now that he is 12 months old, his mum has started motioning that she has had enough of him and has started to separate herself which is only natural,” Mr Long said.

“In June we will take him out of preschool and into another enclosure to give them some more time apart, however we will still give them access to each other which they can choose to spend together or alone.

“We have had many expressions of interest from other facilities who would love to have him as part of their breeding programs, but at the moment we are waiting to see how he fares as he learns to be independent of his mum.”

Kye Georgaris with mum Shelby Georgaris shared his first birthday with Henry. Picture by Scott Fletcher

Sydney one-year-old Kye Georgaris who shared his birthday yesterday with the famous Polar Bear, paid a special visit to the Gold Coast with his family just for the occasion.

His mum Shelby Georgaris said when Kye arrived more than a week early last year she was thrilled to find out he was born on the same day as Henry.

“I have had an obsession with Polar Bears for more than 10 years and my husband and I even had ice sculptures at our wedding,” Ms Georgaris said.

“So when Kye arrived on the same day as Australia’s famously cute Polar Bear everyone in our family was so thrilled.

“It’s so great to think as he grows Kye can track the progress of Henry and have that special connection.

“We call Kye our own little Polar Bear and have done up his nursery in the theme. He even has adorable little Polar pyjamas.

“This has been the best week of our lives visiting the Gold Coast and being part of the birthday celebrations at SeaWorld. Henry has so much energy to play around and is just so cute — almost as cute as Kye.”