Winter has now finally hit Finland. The temperatures have gone down considerably, and snow keeps falling, covering the landscape in its arctic outfit and ensuring the silence of wintertime. And this is not to everyone’s liking  (Not everybody is happy during this time of the year.) Some people flee to the Canaries for a week, others try anything else to turn up the light and heat in their home.

What about hibernation? Some mammals think that’s the best way to spend winter and aren’t bothered by the cold and darkness. One example is the brown bear, Ursus arctos. If you would like to know what a hibernating bear looks like, check out:

There you can see the brown bear, Lady Niisku, who lives in a park for big predators close to Kuusamo in eastern Finland. It is the first time that a web camera was installed into a bear’s den during hibernation. Niisku moves a lot in her sleep, but what is of particular interest is that since Friday, 19th of January she is not alone anymore. She gave birth to two cubs. Most of the time they are hidden from view by their mother’s body. At their birth the cubs weighed only 300 grams and need their mother’s body heat to survive. The two baby bears are expected to come out of the den in May, and by then they will weigh approximately three kilograms. Their mother will make her first outside appearance a bit earlier, in April, in order to get some food, which she has not ingested since October.

Niisku had a bad car accident when she was still a cub herself and thus ended up in the predator park. Now she is already 15 years old and weighs 200 kilograms, but these cubs are her first. They will live in the park their first year, even though the compound can only accommodate six bears (the cubs raise the number to eight). To watch a female bear giving birth during hibernation via the web camera gives researchers a great opportunity to find out more about the habits and bio-rhythms of brown bears, the only bear species living in Finland.

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