The 5 Cutest Wild Polar Bear Videos You’ll Ever See

Today, Feb. 27, is International Polar Bear Day!

Polars Bears International (PBI) founded Polar Bear Day as a way of raising awareness about the challenges being faced by these wonderful animals. Soaring temperatures and rising sea levels – two of the most obvious effects of worldwide climate change – mean polar bears often struggle to find food, while they have also been left with a lot less sea ice to live on.

If you want to help the bears, be sure to check out PBI’s Thermostat Challenge. This campaign encourages people to adjust their thermostats by a few degrees (up or down, depending on location and the season) in order to demonstrate their commitment to lowering greenhouse gas emissions.

The Thermostat Challenge forms a part of PBI’s Save Our Sea Ice (SOS) Campaign: a series of celebrations that are centered around combating Climate change. The SOS Campaign begins every year on International Polar Bear Day, and – to highlight the fact that saving the planet’s polar bears is a year-round effort – runs right through until Polar Bear Week in the fall.

You can also help by making a symbolic polar bear adoption with the World Wildlife Fund, which will allow the organization to continue their important work conserving the polar bears’ Arctic habitat.

In the meantime, enjoy these five videos of polar bears as they grow up, emerge from their winter hibernation, attack spy cameras, and fool around!

1. Find out how polar bear cubs go from being tiny, huggable little furballs to the largest land carnivores on the planet:

2. Prepare to tear up as you watch these two baby cubs showering their mama with love!

3. Check out this clip of a mother bear and her cubs emerging from their den, as featured in BBC’s acclaimed natural history documentary “Planet Earth.”

4. Have a giggle at this polar bear’s attempts to wreck a ‘hidden’ spy camera!

5. Enjoy this beautiful video of a mother and cub sliding across the ice together. Looks like they’re having fun!

And here’s one brand new extra special video just in time for International Polar Bear Day taken in Churchill, Canada — the polar bear capital of the world!

Image source: tableatny / Flickr