Exciting news! The Columbus Zoo has welcomed its newest polar bear, Nora. Check out this adorable cub's journey from infancy to adulthood. Your heart will absolutely melt.
Day 1: Nora was born November 6, 2015, to her mother Aurora
Day 5: Mother leaves Nora in the Den for four to five hours, causing zoo staff to make the decision to pull the cub and hand-raise her in order to ensure she will be kept warm and well fed at all times. Documented history shows that Nora will be only the eighth polar bear ever to be hand-raised.
Day 37: Nora opens her eyes.
Day 60: Cub starts growing at 200 grams per day. Her personal team of hand raisers begin feeding her soft can dog food now instead of formula.
Day 74: Nora is introduced to water in a small container where she can splash around or sit in. Her handlers also start giving her larger enrichment tools such as “boomer balls” that other zoo animals have.
Day 85: Nora begins running.
3.5 months: She is now taken from the animal hospital where she has been, to the Columbus Zoo Polar Bear building. Here she begins learning about the water pool where she splashes around in a 6-inch depth. Now being at the zoo, it expose her to all zoo elements such as seeing, hearing and smelling the other bears.
4 months: Nora is now moved in to the maternity yard, which is a dialed down version of the adult yard that is seen at the zoo. She has upgraded to a pool with a depth of seven feet where she now learns to dive
4.5 months: She is now finally brought out to the large yard for zoo visitors to officially meet her.
Today: from only 672 grams at her birth, Nora is now over 50 lbs and gains about 10 lbs per week. Eventually she will have to join another polar bear, which may cause her migration from the Columbus Zoo to another zoo.
