Winter online exhibition
Accession number LIV.2003.42
The polar bear is the largest species of bear, reaching a length of 2.5m and weighing up to 500kg. It feeds mainly on ringed seals, which it ambushes at their breathing holes or on the ice. It will also take other marine mammals, fish, sea birds and reindeer.
It is found in the Arctic region, its range being determined by formation of pack ice. The amount of pack ice has decreased recently due to climate change, which is a cause for concern regarding the future of this species.
This polar bear specimen was obtained from Salford Museum in 1970 for display in the Arctic diorama in the natural history gallery at Liverpool Museum, the former name of World Museum Liverpool.
An earlier picture of this polar bear was shown in the exhibition The Great White Bear at the Horniman Museum, London, in 2006-2007. The exhibition included photographs of every taxidermied polar bear in UK collections, taken by artists Bryndís Snaebjörnsdóttir and Mark Wilson as part of the project nanoq: flat out and bluesome. Our polar bear was photographed in storage a few years ago.
Since then it has been conserved at the National Conservation Centre and is now in the Endangered Planet display at World Museum Liverpool, following a refurbishment of the gallery in 2006.
The polar bear being prepared for display