The Columbus Zoo is making this AI announcement in conjunction with Arctic Sea Ice Day on July 15, which raises important awareness about ways to help protect polar bears’ important hunting, breeding, and denning grounds. While they have successfully bred with male bears in the past, AI offers additional ground-breaking conservation options such as potentially reducing the need to move bears to different facilities to ensure genetic diversity for breeding, as well as helping to provide valuable data that can benefit polar bears in their native ranges. Both Aurora and her twin sister, Anana, are proven breeders, and at nearly 16 years old, they are in their prime reproductive years, which made them good candidates for AI.

While he resided at the Columbus Zoo, he fathered male cub, Kulu, with Aurora. Anana and Aurora were artificially inseminated with semen from Lee, a male polar bear at the Louisville Zoo, who temporarily lived at the Columbus Zoo from November 2018 until August 2020. The AI took place on Maat the Columbus Zoo after months of careful planning and preparation.

Erin Curry, at Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden’s Lindner Center for Conservation and Research of Endangered Wildlife (CREW) helped perform artificial insemination (AI) on bears, Anana and Aurora, in hopes that the procedure will produce cubs. In collaboration with the team, led by Dr. Powell, OH – Two female polar bears at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium are contributing to innovative scientific efforts aimed at helping to protect the future of this at-risk species.

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