Point Defiance Zoo responds to internet’s concerns about polar bear’s health
May 8, 2025, 6:15 AM
Tonja, an eight-year-old polar bear, nibbles on an "ice bomb" of frozen water, fruit and fish at Tiergarten zoo. (Photo: Sean Gallup, Getty Images)
(Photo: Sean Gallup, Getty Images)
Wildlife experts are responding to concerns about one of their polar bear’s health and treatment after a recent video gained thousands of views on the social media app TikTok. The video shows the bear, Laerke, bounding up and down repeatedly, seemingly unending. The person who posted the video questioned if the bear had enough stimulation or enrichment, and wondered if the bear was hot.
“Guests have come and seen this behavior and are not really sure how to interpret it,” said Malia Somerville, the General Curator at the Point Defiance Zoo.
In a TikTok video of their own, the zoo shows the types of stimulation they provide the bears, ice blocks to chew and scrape, items to dig into, climbing, and other activities that simulate natural behaviors they would do in the wild.
“Enrichment is really important for animal behavior because it gives the animals an opportunity to express all their natural behaviors,” Somerville said.
It’s those natural behaviors that Laerke will occasionally repeat on end.
The most noticeable of Laerke’s behaviors is a pouncing motion, where she bounces up and down frequently, like what was seen in the now-viral video. It’s an instinctual behavior for the Arctic natives to break through the ice to capture their food.
“Laerke does some things that are all-natural polar bear behavior, but she’ll do them repetitively and more often than we would like to see,” Somerville said.
Somerville says what’s abnormal to people is normal—and unique—to Laerke. The bear came to Point Defiance as a cub with her sister and habitat-mate, Astra, from the Detroit Zoo two years ago. Twins are common in polar bears, and in the wild, typically only one will survive its first season. In Detroit, the twins’ mother favored Astra, meaning Laerke needed to be fed by humans. That, and a medical scare, meant she needed extra care.
“She was basically saved by the folks at the Detroit Zoo, who really stepped in and helped resuscitate her,” said Dr. Karen Wolf, a veterinarian at the Point Defiance Zoo.
Dr. Wolf says all of Laerke’s physical exams show she is now a “very healthy bear.” Although they are both growing, Laerke is several hundred pounds lighter than her twin sister. That occasionally leads to “uncomfortable sister interactions,” as Somerville calls it, where Astra will establish her dominance, and oftentimes Laerke will be seen doing the pouncing motion afterward. They also notice it happens more during the spring, during polar bears’ typical mating season.
“You’re going through puberty, you are having a surge of reproductive hormones. That may influence it,” Wolf theorized, “So she may be having some feelings.”
The zoo has brought on an animal behaviorist to try and crack Laerke’s code and see why she may behave the way she does.
As for the TikTok video, the person who posted it didn’t take it down, but did create a follow-up acknowledging that the zoo reached out to ease her initial concerns.
