Fascinating Trivia About Polar Bears and Red Pandas

Are there bears in jail? 

Yup, in Churchill, Manitoba, Canada.

Officially, the building was once a morgue 

on a former military base, but now it’s being used to keep up to twenty-three polar bears alive at a time!

In the past, many polar bears were killed 

if they came too close to the town of Churchill. 

Now they’re kept in the “Polar Bear Jail” 

during the late fall until the pack ice freezes, then released to join their brethren 

in Hudson Bay, for the seal hunt.

What’s Named after a Bear, but Looks Like a Raccoon?

It’s the red panda, but it’s neither a bear or a raccoon.

The red panda has its own independent family in the scientific classification system, called Ailuridae, whereas the bear 

is classified as an Ursidae. 

The taxonomic classification of both the red panda and giant panda has actually been a subject of debate for many decades, as both species share characteristics of bears and raccoons.

While the red panda and giant panda share the same name, they are only very distantly related by remote common ancestry from the Early Tertiary Period. 

Its common ancestor can be traced back tens of millions 

of years. Fossils of the red panda have been unearthed from China in the east to Britain 

in the west and most recently a handful of fossils have also been discovered in North America.

By Sylvia Dolson

Photos: Unsplash